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SOME ACCOUNT 



OF THE 



LIFE AND WORKS 



OF 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



HY ALLAN CUNNLVGIIAM. 



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'KbOSTON: 

STIMPSON & CLAPP, 72 WASHINGTON STREET. 



1832. 



NO. M, WATER STREET. 



LIFE AND WORKS 



OF 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 



"Biography," says Fiiseli, " however use- 
ful to mail, or dear to art, is the unequivocal 
homage of inferiority offered to the majesty of 
genius." This I feel to be true as regards 
Sir Walter Scott:- 1 write of him, however, 
less from a sense of this inferiority, than from 
an earnest love and an enthusiastic admiration 
of the subject ; or rather from a desire to afibrd 
some relief to my own feelings. The task of 
truly delineating his life and genius requires an 
abler pen than mine, and the world need not 
be told, that such is to be found in the great 
poet's own household. I shall content myself, 
therefore, with throwing hastily together such 
notices of bis life and writings, as I think will 
be acceptable, till something worthier can be 
done : .1 must trust, sometimes, to printed state- 



ments whicli have remained Tincontiadictcd ; 
sometimes to written memoranda, by the 
poet's own hand, or the hands of friends ; and 
often to my own memory, which is far from 
treacherous in aught connected with men of 
genius. 

Sir Walter Scott could claim descent from a 
long line of martial ancestors. Through his 
father, whose name he bore, he reckoned kin 
with those great families who scarcely count 
the Duke of Buccleugh their head ; and through 
his mother, Elizabeth Rutherford, he was con- 
nected with the w^arlike family of Swinton of 
Swinton, long known in the Scottish wars. 
His father was a Writer to the Signet, in Ed- 
inburgh, and much esteemed in his profession, 
but not otherwise remarkable ; his mother had 
great natural talents, and was not only related 
to that lady, w^io sang so sweetly of the ' Flow- 
ers of the Forest,' but was herself a poetess of 
taste and genius, and a lover of what her son 
calls " the art unteachable, untaught." She 
was acquainted with Allan Ramsay, and inti- 
mate with Blacklock, Beattie, and Burns. 
Sir Walter, the eldest of fourteen children, all 
of whom he survived, was born in Edinburgh, 
on the 15th of August, 1771. Before he was 



two years old, he received a fall out of the 
arms of a careless nurse, which injured his 
right foot, and rendered him lame for life : this 
accident did not otherwise affect his health. 
He was, as I have been informed by a lady who 
chanced to live near him, a remarkably active 
and dauntless boy ; full of all manner of fun, 
and ready for all manner of mischief He 
calls himself, in one of his introductions to 
Marmion, 

A self-willed imp ; a grandame's child. 

And I have heard it averred, that the circum- 
stance of his lame foot prompted him to take 
the lead among all the stirring boys in the 
street where he lived, or the school which he 
attended. He desired, perhaps, to show them, 
that there was a spirit which could triumph 
over all impediments. He was taught the ru- 
diments of knowledge by his mother, and was 
placed afterwards under Dr. Adam, of the 
High School : no one, however, has recorded 
any anecdote of his early talents. Adam con- 
sidered him rather dull than otherwise; but 
Hugh Blair, it is said, at one of the examina- 
tions, foretold his future eminence. I have not 

heard this confirmed by anything like good 
1# 



6 



authority ; the author of the ' Belles Lettres ' 
was not reckoned so very discerning. The 
remark of Burns is better authenticated ; the 
poet, while at Professor Ferguson's one day, 
was struck by some lines attached to a print of 
a soldier dying in the snow, and inquired who 
was the author ; none of the old or the learned 
spoke, when the future author of Marmion 
answered, " They are by Langhorne." Burns 
fixed his large bright eyes on the boy, and 
striding up to hiui, said, " It is no common 
course of reading, which has taught you this. 
This lad," said he to the company, " will be 
heard of yet." Of his acquirements at school, 
I can say little : I never heard scholars praise 
his learning ; and his Latin has been called in 
question, where he had only some four lines 
to write : if he did not know that well, he 
seems to have known everything else. 

That a love of poetry and romance should 
have come upon him early, will not be won- 
dered at by those who know anything of the 
lowlands of Scotland — more particularly the 
district where his paternal hoync lay, and 
where he often lived during vacation time. 
The whole land is alive with song and story : 
almost every stone that stands above the 



ground, is the record of some skirmish or single 
combat ; and every stream, altliough its waters 
be so inconsiderable as scarcely to moisten the 
pasture through which they run, is renowned 
in song and in ballad. " I can stand," said 
Sir Walter one day to me, " on the Eildon Hill, 
and point out forty-three places, famous in war 
and in verse." How the Muse, that loves him 
who walks by himself 

Along some wimpling burn's meander, 

found out Scott, among the hills and holms of 
the border, need not, therefore, form any part 
of our inquiry ; it will be more difficult to dis- 
cover, how a love of delineating landscapes 
came to him. I do not mean landscapes copied 
from the works of the professors, but scenes 
copied from nature herself ; this bespeaks a 
deeper acquaintance with art, than I could have 
given him credit for. Such, however, I am 
told, is the fact ; and though he never made 
much progress in the art, it is my duty to re- 
late it, Avere it but to show the spirit and bent 
of the boy. With regard to his inclination for 
song and story, we have his own testimony. 

" I must refer," says Sir Walter, " to a very 
early period of my life, were I to point out my 



8 



first achievements as a tale- writer : but I be- 
lieve some of my old school-fellows can still 
bear witness, that I had a distinguished char- 
acter for that talent, at a time when the ap- 
plause of my companions was my recompense 
for the disgraces and punishments which the 
future romance-writer incurred, for being idle 
himself, and keeping others idle during hours 
that should have been employed on their tasks. 
The chief enjoyment of holidays was, to es- 
cape with a chosen friend who had the same 
taste with myself, and alternately to recite to 
each other such wild adventures as we were 
able to devise. We told, each in turn, intermi- 
nable tales of knight-errantry, and battles, and 
enchantments, which were continued from one 
day to another, as opportunity offered, without 
ever thinking of bringing them to a conclusion. 
As we observed a strict secresy on the subject of 
this intercourse, it acquired all the character of 
a concealed pleasure, and we used to select for 
the scenes of our indulgence, long walks 
through the solitary and romantic environs of 
Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Crags, Braid Hills, 
and similar places in the vicinity of ICdinburgh ; 
and the recollection of those holidays still forms 
an oasis in the pilgrimage which I have to look 



9 



back upon." This singular talent he retained 
while he lived : he was the most skilful relater 
of an anecdotCj and the cleverest teller of a 
story of all men I ever met : he saw all the 
picturesque points, and felt all the little turns 
and twists which give character and life to a 
tale ; and had his words been written down, 
tliey would have been found as correct in all 
things, as one of his novels. Once when he 
made me laugh heartily at one of his innumera- 
ble stories, he said, "Ah ! had you but heard my 
friend James Watt tell a story, then you might 
have laughed. He had day and date and 
name to all his ; and one of the great beauties 
was, that if one tried to tell the same story with 
the alteration of either name or date, the charm 
was gone, and it wrought no enchantment." 

The graver cares of life were to be attended 
to, and Scott had given up his solitary rambles, 
and his interminable tales of enchantment and 
diablerie, with the intention of preparing him- 
self for the bar, when a severe illness, which 
hung long about him, threw him back, as he 
observed, on the kingdom of fiction. '' My 
indisposition," he says, " arose in part at least, 
from my having broken a blood-vessel; and 
motion and speech were for a long time pro- 



10 

nounced dangerous. For several weeks, I was 
confined strictly to my bed, during which time, 
I was not allowed to speak above a whisper, to 
eat more than a spoonful or two of boiled rice, 
or to have more covering than one thin coun- 
terpane. When the reader is informed, that I 
was at that time a growing youth, with the 
spirits, appetite, and impatience of fifteen, and 
suffered, of course, greatly under this severe 
regimen, which the repeated return of my dis- 
order rendered indispensable, he will not be 
surprised, that I was abandoned to my own 
discretion, as far as reading, my almost sole 
amusement, was concerned ; and still less so, 
that I abused the indulgence, which left my 
time so much at my own disposal." To the 
oral lore of the house of Scott, and the legends 
of nurse^5, wet and dry, he now added those of 
the circulating library : he had access to the 
one founded by Allan Ramsay, and finding it 
rich in works of fiction, he read, or rather de- 
voured, all he could lay his hands on, from the 
rhyme romances of chivalry, including the 
heavy fohos of Cyrus aud Cassandra, down to 
the more vulgar labors of later times. " I was 
plunged," said he, •' into the great ocean of 
reading, without compass or pilot ; and unless 



11 

when some one had the chanty to play at chess 
with me, I Avas allowed to do nothing, save 
read, from morning to night. Accordingly, I 
believe I read almost all the romances, old 
plays, and epic poetr}^, in that formidable col- 
lection, and no doubt was unconsciously amas- 
sing materials for the task in which it has been 
my lot to be so much employed. Familiar ac- 
quaintance with the specious miracles of fiction 
brought with it some degree of satiety, and I 
began, by degrees, to seek in histories, memoirs, 
voyages and travels, and the like, events near- 
ly as wonderful as those which were the work 
of imagination, with the additional advantage, 
that they were, at least, in a great measure^ 
true." This course of study, — ^for so in fact it 
proved, — together with a two years' residence 
in the country, re-establishing his health, 
where he found tradition's good store, both ro- 
mantic and historical, brought the elements 
together of that splendid species of fiction, in 
w^hich he has surpassed all mankind. 

With returning health Scott came back to 
Edinburgh, and resumed his studies in the law. 
He is said to have been an indolent student : 
he says otherwise himself, and no one need 
doubt his assertion ; indeed his works of fie- 



12 

tion are all more or less impressed with the 
stamp of law ; and Gifford, the sarcastic edi- 
tor of tlie Quarterly Review^ made it a mat- 
ter of reproach, that his plots were law pleas, 
and that he had too much of the Court of Ses- 
sion in his compositions. This was hy way of 
requital for having drawn the critic's character 
in that of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, and, 
therefore, ought not to be considered as an ob- 
jection of much weight. " The severe studies," 
Scott observes, '•' necessary to render me fit for 
my profession, occupied the great part of my 
time, and the society of my fiiends and com- 
panions, who were about to enter life along 
with me, filled up the interval with the usual 
amusements of young men. I was in a situa- 
tion, which rendered serious labor indispensa- 
ble ; for neither possessing on the one hand, 
any of those peculiar advantages, which are 
supposed to favor a hasty advance in the pro- 
fession of the law, nor being on the other hand 
exposed to unusual obstacles, to interrupt my 
progress, I might reasonably expect to succeed 
according to the greater or less degree of trou- 
ble which I should take to qualify myself as a 
pleader." He seems not to liave been aware 
that two angels, that of darkness, Law, and 



13 



that of light, Poesie — had at this time posses- 
sion of him, and were contending for mastery ; 
nor would he ever allow that his life had any- 
thing remarkable in it. [n one of his many 
letters, he says, " There is no man known at 
all in literature, who may not have more to tell 
of his private life than I have. I have sur- 
mounted no difficulties either of birth or educa- 
tion, nor have I been favored by any particular 
advantages, and my life has been as void of 
incidents of importance, as that of the weary 
knife-grinder, — 

*' Story ! God bless you, I have none to" tell, Sir." 

This was said in one of his uncommunica- 
tive moods. The story of his life, when it 
comes to be fully written, will be found as re- 
markable as any in the list of literary biogra- 
phies, with the exception of that of Burns. 
Was it nothing- to triumph over what seemed 
a predestined calling ; for he was come of two 
races of lawyers ? Was it nothing to collect 
such stores from all quarters, as enabled him 
to give a new tone to the romance and the po- 
etry of Europe ? And was it nothing to sit 
unseen, and for a series of years work enchant- 
ments, compared to which his namesake's 
2 



14 



cleaving the Eildon Hills in three cannot be 
regarded as wonderful? To speak in this 
way, was being modest overmuch : indeed, 
whenever he spoke of his works, he would 
never allow himself a tithe of the merit in any- 
thing which the world allowed, which was 
certainly not more than courteous to his ad- 
mirers. 

For a while, it seemed as if law had succeed- 
ed, and that the muse had given up the con- 
test. Scott was called to the bar as an advo- 
cate on the 1 1th of July, 1792, and attended 
to the duties of his station with such seeming 
good will, that he was generally considered in 
the fair road to success and independence. To 
strengthen his resohitions, and furnish himself 
with a reason for laboring in his profession, he 
married Miss Carpenter, a young lady of the 
Isle of Jejsey ; took a house in North Castle 
street, Edinburgh ; and through the influence 
of his family, — some have added, from a sort 
of dawning notion of his coming greatness, — 
he had the office of Sheriff Depute for Selkirk- 
shire conferred upon him, 16th December, 1799. 
This added a little to the fruits of his profes- 
sional industry, which I have heard were nev- 
er large. Of his eloquence, and his skill, and 



15 

dexterity in the conducting of a case in Court, 
I have heard various and rather contradictory 
accounts : while one represented him as hesi- 
tating and embarrassed in his mode of address, 
another told me that he was acute and clear 
headed, and above all, had the art in which 
the late Sir William G arrow so much excelled, 
of extracting exactly so much truth from any 
witness as suited his purpose. As a sheriff, 
he was kind and just ; he took an equitable 
view of everything, and if he had any partiali- 
ties, as James Hogg avers, it was towards poach- 
ers' by water and land ; which induced the 
Bard of Ettrick to surmise, that the poet of Ab- 
botsford had fished and shot in prohibited places 
himself. He had a high notion of the dignity 
which belonged to his post, and sternly main- 
tained it when any one seemed disposed to 
treat it with more familiarity than was becom- 
ing. On one occasion, it is said, when some 
foreign prince or other, — 1 rather think it was 
the Archduke Nicholas, now Emperor of Rus- 
sia, — was passing through Selkirk, the popu- 
lace, anxious to look on a live prince, crowded 
around him so closely, that Scott in vain at- 
tempted to approach him : the poet's patience 
failed, and exclaiming " Room for your Sher- 



16 

ilT! Room for your Sheriff'! " he pushed and 
elbowed the gazers impatiently aside, and 
apologized to the prince for their curiosity. 

To those, however, who were intimate with 
Scott, all this attention to law, and desire to 
be distinguished at the bar, seemed but as a 
sort of mask to conceal the real purposes of his 
heart. If his hand was with the Court of 
Session, his heart was in the temple of the 
Muses ; and though he appeared by day in all 
the externals of one deep in the mysteries of 
jurisprudence, he allowed nature to take her 
course in the evening and morning. To his 
friend WiUiam Erskine alone, it is said, he 
opened the purpose of his heart ; to secure a 
small competence, and then dedicate all the 
time he could command to literature. In his 
introduction to ' Marmion,' there is something 
like evidence of this ; at least Erskine appears 
there as a friend and adviser, and as one, too, 
who thought differently from the poet. It 
would seem that the admonisher entertained 
all the current classes notions respecting com- 
position, and desired the muse of his friend 

Still to be neat, still to be drest, 
As she were going to a feast. 

Scott, on the other hand, had no desire to dance 



17 

in fetters, or carry weight in a race of his own 
choice : he stood up for the Hcense and free- 
dom of the muse, and exclaimed, wisely, 

Nay, Erskine, nay ; on the wild hill 
Let the wild heath flower flourish still. 

Jeffrey afterwards wrote in the same strain 
in which Erskine talked ; but Scott felt that 
within which could not be schooled down, and 
said, with the pithy proverb, " Let ilka man 
wear his ain belt his ain gait." It was, how- 
ever, with the advice of Erskine, that, in 1796, 
he published a poem called ' The Chase,' and 
the ballad of ' William and Helen,' from the 
German. " In this little work (says a Northern 
authority) indications were to be found of that 
leaning towards romantic incident and parade 
of chivalry, which has since characterized Mr. 
Scott's greater w^orks, and given a new tone to 
the public feeling in matters of poetry." In 
1799 he published ' Goetz of Berlichingen,' 
from the German of Goethe. None of these 
productions was of such moment, as to carry 
his name beyond the circle of his more imme- 
diate acquaintances : the German literature, 
with many briUiant things fiom nature, is too 
startling and grotesque, though sobered down 

by the taste of such excellent translators as 

2* 



18 



(/arlyle. Lord Francis Gower, and Coleridge. 
Even the two fine ballads of ' Glenfinlas,' and 
the ' Eve of St. John,' were thought to have a 
touch too much of the German spirit ; — to be 
sure, they appear in unnatural company, — the 
' Tales of Wonder' came out like a will-o'- 
wisp, to flash and astonish ; but men soon saw 
that the light was of evil, and not of good, and 
would have no more of it. Sir \V alter told me, 
the proudest hour of his life was, when he was 
invited to dine with Monk Lewis ; he consid- 
ered it as a sure recognition of his talents ; and 
as he sat down at the table, he almost exclaim- 
ed with Tamlane — 

He's owned among us a'l. 

A work which has not the merit of original- 
ity laid the foundation of Sir Walter's fame : 
this was the ' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Bor- 
der,' in three volumes ; two of which contained 
genuine old ballads, and the third imitations ; 
the whole illustrated with notes, more valuable 
and infinitely more amusing than the ballads 
themselves ; nor is it unworthy of remark, that 
they came from the press of Ballantyne at 
Kelso — a name since grown famous for beau- 
tiful type and elegant arrangement. It was 



19 

received with universal approbation. His mode 
of illustration was in a bolder style than that 
of Percy ; and none, save antiquarians, and 
not many of them, could perceive the liberties 
which the editor had taken with the rude and 
mutilated chants of our mihtary ancestors. He 
was too fond a lover of antique verse, and too 
dexterous a poet, to permit the Border Ballads 
to go in " looped and windowed raggedness" 
from his hand. Indeed, had he not done so, 
few would have bought his work. They were 
sadly disfigured by bad reciters, and spoiled by 
ignorant transcribers. The ' Lochmaben Harp- 
er,' ' Lord Maxwell's Good Night,' and a few 
others, are untouched and entire ; but over 
most of the others, like the love-letter which 
Tom Pipes undertook to carry, the heel of the 
ignorant multitude had trodden, and reduced 
them to tatters which shook in the wind. Rit- 
son could no more have edited such a work 
than he could have flown over Olympus : 
none but a true and a good poet hke Scott was 
fit for it. Your right natural ballad will bear 
a gentle polishing ; it is not like the gilt shield 
of Scriblerus, which, by frequent furbishing, 
grew down to the lid of a saucepan. I consid- 
er the ^ Minstrelsy of the Border' to be a great 



20 



national work, which will do for Scotland what 
Percy's ' Reliques' has done for England — keep 
a love of truth and nature living amongst us. 

In collecting these traditionary ballads, Sir 
Walter met with what any one but himself 
would have deemed adventures. He visited 
lonesome valleys and shepherds' shiels ; nor 
did he omit to pay his respects to all the old 
people ; and with an art which showed at once 
his knowledge of human nature, and his affec- 
tion for the dying strains of our ancestors, he 
led their memories back to other days, and 
caught at the fragment of an old verse as a 
creature drowning would catch a twig. It 
happened that James Hogg, in those days, 
watched sheep in Ettrick ; in one of his excur- 
sions, Scott made an inroad upon the Shepherd's 
establishment, and summoned him from the 
hills. " I accordingly went homewards," says 
Hogg ; " but before reaching it, I met the Sher- 
iff and Mr. William Laidlaw coming to visit 
me. They remained in our cottage for a space 
better than an hour, and my mother chanted 
the ballad of 'Old Maitland,' with which Mr. 
Scott was highly delighted. I had sent him a 
copy : but I thought he had some dread of 
a part being forged, and that had been the 



21 

cause of his journey into the wilds of Ettrick. 
When he heard my mother sing it, he was 
quite satisfied ; and I remember he asl^ed her 
if she thought it liad ever been printed ; and 
her answer was, ' Oh na, Sir, it was never 
prentit o' the world ; for my brothers an' me 
learned it frae auld Andrew Moor ; an' he 
learned it, an' mony mae, frae auld Babie Mait- 
land, that was housekeeper to the first laird o' 
Tushielaw.' — " Then that must be a very auld 
story indeed, Margaret,' said he. 'Ay, it is 
that ! it is an auld story ! But mair nor that, 
except George Warton and James Stewart, 
there was never ane of my sangs prentit till 
you prentit them yersel. (The two first vol- 
lumes of the ' Minstrelsy ' were published sep- 
arately.) An' ye hae spoilt them a'thegither. 
They were made for singing, an' no for read- 
ing ; an' they are nouther I'ight spelled nor 
right setten down'. — ' Heh, heh ! take ye that 
Mr. Scott,' said Laidlaw. Mr. Scott answered 
by a hearty laugh, and the recital of a verse, 
but I have forgot what it was : and my mother 
gave him a rap on the knee with her open 
hand, and said, ' It's true enough, for a' that.' " 
The remark that these old ballads were made 
to be sung, and not to be printed, may be ap- 



22 



plied to Sir Walter's early verses. Any one, 
who reads the letter which he received from 
Monk Lewis, on the importantaffair of rhyme, 
will see that Scott rhymed in his 3^outhfnl days 
to please the ear, and not to satisfy the eye ; 
that, in fact, he imitated the old ballad where 
corresponding sounds only were required, and 
could not always be obtained. These letters 
show more — they prove that Lord Byron was 
incorrect, when he said that the ' Fire King ' 
in the Minstrelsy was almost all Lev/is's ; for, 
in truth, it is all Scott's. "Instead," says Sir 
Walter, " of writing the greater part of it, he 
did not write a single word of it. Dr. Leyden, 
and another gentleman who still survives, were 
sitting at my side while I wrote it : nor did the 
occupation prevent the circulation of the bottle." 
Byron also said, " When Walter Scott began 
to write poetry, which was not at a very early 
age, Monk Lewis corrected his verse : he un- 
derstood little, then, of the mechanical part of 
it." The latter part of this sentence is less ac- 
curate than it would seem: Lewis and Scott 
were of different schools of song : the latter had 
all the carelessness about nicety of rhyme which 
marks the olden ballad ; the former all the fas- 
tidiousness of the circles of Dr. Johnson : that 



23 

he understood the mechanical part well, needs 
no forther proof than that the remarks of Lewis 
are directed exclusively to the rhyme words, 
and not to the construction of the verse, nor 
the melody of the numbers. Sir Walter him- 
self, in speaking of the second edition of the 
' Minstrelsy,' regards it as '' rather a heavy con- 
cern. The demand in Scotland," said he, 
" had been supplied by the first edition ; and 
the curiosity of the English was not much 
awakened by poems in the rude garb of an- 
tiquity, accompanied with notes referring to the 
obscure feuds of barbarous clans, of whose very 
names civilized history was ignorant." This 
cannot be said now of the name of Scott : it 
has got an airing over the wide worki, and 
must be every where revered, as that of Spen- 
ser is in Engkmd. 

The death of his father brousrht such an in- 
crease of income, that with the proceeds of the 
Sheriffdom, which equalled three hundred a 
year, he w^as in a condition to pursue his own 
inclinations. " He could now," he somewhere 
says, " take less to heart the preference which 
solicitors gave to his contemporaries, who 
thought them fitter for their work than a man 
whose head was filled with ballads, old and 



24 



new." But before he resolved to lean more 
than ever towards hterature, he weighed the 
good with the evil of his choice ; and did not 
shut his eyes to the circumstance, that a man 
of genius has to wage a continual war with 
captious critics and disappointed authors. It 
also occurred to him, that several men of the 
greatest genius, in the avenging of some piti- 
ful quarrel, had made themselves ridiculous 
during their lives, and objects of pity to future 
times. I can understand all this better than 
the conclusion which the poet draws in his 
own favor, namely, that as he had no preten- 
sion to the genius of those eminent sufferers^ 
he was not likely to imitate them in their mis- 
takes. What he felt, hovv^ever, is one thing ; 
what he did is another : he seemed, on many 
occasions, to underrate, in a prodigious degree, 
his own talents : — one resolution is, however, 
worthy of noting ; he determined, if possible, 
to avoid those weaknesses of temper, which 
seemed on too many occasions to have beset 
his eminent predecessors : it need not be told 
how well he kept this resolution, and with 
what courtesy he demeaned himself to all man- 
kind. At the same time it may be added, that 
such gentleness was part of his natural charac- 



25 



ter, and not assumed for the sake of tranquillity 
and repose. 

The first fruit of his defection from the 
weightier matters of the law, was the 'Lay 
of the Last Minstrel/ — a poem of such beauty 
and spirit, as more than justified his choice, 
had any one been disposed to censure him for 
forsaking the law's ' dry musty arts,' and en- 
tering into the service of the muse. This I 
look upon as one of the noblest of his works ; 
there are probably more stirring and high 
wrought scenes in some of the succeeding po- 
ems ; but with all their martial ardor, there is 
a certain wildness which lifts the 'Lay' high 
into the regions of imagination, and evel* and 
anon are passages of the most exquisite loveli- 
ness and repose. There is more quiet beauty 
about the work, than the great poet indulged 
in afterwards. The spirit of Scotland acknowl- 
edged at once the original vigor and truth of 
the poem : every paper was filled with the fa- 
vorite passages — every mouth was filled with 
quotation and praise ; and they who lamented 
the loss of Burns, and persisted in believing 
that his place could not be supplied, were con- 
strained to own that a poet of another stamp 
had appeared, whose strains echoed as truly 
3 



26 

and fervently the feelings of their country as 
the songs of the Barcl of Ayr. The history of 
the rise and progress of this poem, the author 
has himself related. It chanced that the young 
Countess of Dalkeith came to the land of her 
husband ; and as she was desirous to become 
acquainted with its customs and traditions, she 
found many w^iUing to satisfy her curiosity ; 
amongst others, Mr. Beattie, of Mickeldale, who 
declared he had a memory for an old-world 
idle story, but none for a sound evangelical ser- 
mon, was ready with his legends, and, with 
some others of a less remarkable kind, related 
the story of Gilpin Horner. " The young 
Countess," said Scott, "much delighted with 
the legend, and the gravity and full confidence 
with which it was told, enjoined it on me, as 
a task, to compose a ballad on the subject. 
Of course, to hear was to obey ; and thus the 
goblin story, objected to by several critics, as 
an excrescence upon the poem, was, in fact, 
the occasion of its being written." How the 
goblin page could have been spared out of the 
poem, no critic undertook to say : his presence 
or his power pervades every part : much that 
is done in war or love is influenced by him ; 
and we may as well require the sap to be taken 



27 

out of a tree in spring, with the hope that it 
will Uve, as take away the page and the book 
of gramarye : the interest of the poem depends, 
in short, upon the supernatural ; and the su- 
pernatural was the belief of the times of which 
the poet gave so true an image. 

Having got a subject from the lips of a lady, 
the poet says he took for the model of his verse 
the ' Christabel ' of Coleridge, and immediately 
wrote several passages in that wild irregular 
measure, which he submitted to two friends 
of acknowledged taste : they shook their heads 
at verses composed on principles they had not 
been accustomed to : they looked upon these 
specimens as a desperate departure from the 
settled principles of taste, and as an insult to 
the established maxims of the learned and the 
critical. They made a full pause at the start- 
ling line — 

Jesu Maria, shield us well ! — 

took up their hats, and went on their way. It 
appeared, however, that on their road home 
they considered the matter ripely, and con- 
cluded that, though both the subject and man 
ner of verse were much out of the common 
way, it would be best for the poet to go on with 



28 

the composition. Thus cheered, the task pro- 
ceeded ; but the author, still doubtful, or per- 
haps willing, like Pope, to soothe churlish crit- 
icism, submitted it to Mr. Jeffrey, who had 
been for some time distinguished for critical 
talent. The plan and verse met his approbation ; 
and now, says Scott, " the poem, being licensed 
by the critics as fit for the market, was soon 
finished, proceeding at the rate of about a canto 
a week. It was finally published in 1805, 
and may be regarded as the first work, in 
which the writer, who has since been so volu- 
minous, laid his claim to be considered as an 
original writer." Amongst those who smiled 
on the poet and his labors are to be numbered 
Pitt and Fox : but neither of them had much 
taste for poetry ; and I must therefore place 
their approbation to the account of public 
opinion. 

' Marmion,' the second great work of Scott, 
followed close — too close, the critics averred — 
on the ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' as if a work 
of genius can be written too fast, when the au- 
thor's heart and mind are in trim. The poet 
now left his little cottage on the side of the 
Esk, for the Ashestiel, on '• the pleasanter 
banks of the Tweed," a place of picturesque 



29 



beautyj and in a land rife with song and story. 
Such a step the duties of his station as sherilf 
required ; but there is no doubt that Tweed's 
silver stream, with its fine fishings, its ancient 
woods, green glades, and a loftier house and 
more extensive gardens, had each and all their 
influence. I visited this place last year in the 
great poet's company, and looked with an in- 
terest, which it was vain to conceal, on the 
groves of birch and on the gabel walls of the 
house itself, where the author of Waverly had 
lived and walked. He seemed the better for a 
sight of the place ; and as we passed the river 
and ascended the opposite bank, looked back 
at the house, rising tall amid the trees on the 
precipitous shore. I consider 'Marmion? as 
the least happy in its story, and the most fier}?" 
and impetuous in its narrative, of all the poet's 
compositions. If we dislike the detail of the 
fortunes of Clare and de Wilton, and feel little 
interest in the conversation of Sir David Lind- 
say, it is quite otherwise with Maimion, villain 
though he be, and wdth old Bell-the-Cat, Earl 
of Angus, and even with the squires, one of 
vulgar and the other of high degree. But 
w^hoever can resist being pleased with these 

personages — and I think few can — who is not 

3* 



o 







kindled up, as with a trumpet, when Surrey 
crosses the Till, and James descends from the 
heights of Flodden to attack him 7 I know of 
no poetic description of a battle, in either an- 
cient or modern times, to compare with that 
of Flodden Field : the whirlwind of action, the 
vicissitudes of a heavy and desperate fight, with 
the individual fortunes of warriors whom we 
love or fear, are there ; yet all is in keeping 
with history. James was a chivalrous prince, 
Surrey a romantic warrior : they could not, 
nor did they, fight in a common way : the poet 
has painted us a picture, and imposed the ideal 
scene upon us for the reality of truth. The 
applause of the world on its appearance was 
loud and long ; it lay upon every gentleman's 
table ; it found a place in every lady's travel- 
ling carriage ; and pleased all, save certain of 
the critics. Jeffrey, who, perhaps, had not 
been consulted before publication, wrote a re- 
view at once bitter and complimentary, and it 
is said had the hardihood to carry the proof- 
sheets to Scott's dinner table, and lay them be- 
fore him. The poet, acting upon his maxim 
of forbearance and gentleness, read the article, 
and saying •' Very well, very well," returned 
it to the author. The poet's wife snatched it 



31 



out of his hand, and glancing over it. exclaimed, 
'' I wonder at your boldness in writing such a 
thing, and more at your hardihood in bringing 
it to this table ! " The review, though friendly 
in many places, did nothing like justice to the 
merits of the poem, while it dwelt with relent- 
less severity where haste or carelessness, real 
or imaginary, were presumed. If I condemn 
the injustice of Jeffrey, what shall I say of 
Lord Byron, who made the circumstance of 
Scott's receiving a thousand pounds for the po- 
em a matter of reproach to the author ? His 
Lordship, with all his talents and his property, 
was more solicitous about a high price for his 
works than all the poets of his day and gen- 
eration put together, and penned the most 
urging letters for high prices and prompt pay- 
ments that ever a bard wrote. 

I have said that Pitt and Fox smiled on the 
minstrel and his works : the former, it appears, 
expressed a desire to William Dundas to be of 
service to the poet ; and the situation of a prin- 
cipal clerk in the Court of Session having been 
pointed out as likely to be soon vacant, arrange- 
ments were made by w^hich the incumbent was 
permitted to retire on his full salary, the poet 
performing the duty gratis till death should 



32 



render it no longer necessary. Pitt died before 
he could sanction this arrangement, though 
the commission lay in the office ready for the 
signature of His Majesty. What was left un- 
done by Pitt was fulfilled by his successor Fox ; 
for Earl Spencer, in the handsomest manner, 
gave directions that all should be completed as 
Pitt had planned. For five or six years the 
poet labored without recompense : at last all 
obstacles were removed, and he obtained the 
emolument of his situation. For these marks 
of ministerial kindness. Whig and Tory, Scott 
speaks with the most humble thankfulness : 
he was certainly the best judge, at least, of his 
own feelings ; but when we consider that the 
Court of Session requires such services, and 
that the places are fitted up with men who can- 
not have a tithe of his talent, our admiration 
of government patronage will be lessened. 

I have omitted, or rather delayed to mention 
till now, a new edition which th3 poet gave us 
of the romance of ' Sir Tristram,' accompanied 
by a dissertation sufficiently ingenious and spec- 
ulative upon the poetry of the century preceding 
Chaucer. It is professedly a learned work ; 
but on no production, however barren, could 
Scott labor without turning sterility into fruit- 



fulness, and barrenness into beauty. I shall 
not say anything of the autiior's theory, that 
the Scotch minstrels of the Border wrote a 
more poetic and elegant English in the reign 
of Alexander the Third, than the English 
themselves, because, though he seems to make 
good his assertion, I cannot at all believe it : 
I turn with more pleasure to his edition of Dry- 
den, which, in 1809, followed ' Marmion.' 
Of the dramas and prose of Dryden, — the latter 
the best part of his works, — the world knew 
little; and the editor made it his business to 
arrange all that he wrote in the order of com 
position, illustrate the text with such notes as 
distance of time rendered necessary, and add a 
new life, v^^ritten with much care and know- 
ledge, into which were admitted such anecdotes 
and incidents as had come to light since the 
days of Johnson. This, which to other men 
would have been the work of a life-time, he 
completed in the compass of a twelve-month, 
and set his hand at liberty for a poem which 
he always. I am told, regarded as the best of 
his poetic compositions. 

The ' Lady of the Lake,' written in 1809, 
and published in 1810, I have always consid- 
ered as the most interesting of all the epic sto- 



34 



ries which Scott told in verse : nor is this all 
the merit ; it is very various and picturesque, 
full of fine situations, and incident, and char- 
acter. I suspect its great success arose mainly 
from the sort of set-off, which the old tartan 
made against the boddin gray of the lowlands ; 
the demi-barbarous heroism of the mountains, 
against the more barbarous generosity of the 
vales. All this was new to the world, and 
novelty is an attractive commodity, and rather 
a scarce one. The poems of Ossian gave us 
the feelings and manners of a remote era, but 
did not contain a single picture of Avhat could 
be confirmed by tradition or by history: they 
were also reckoned spurious by very sensible 
men. Scott had therefore no rival to remove 
from the people's love ; nor had any poet arisen, 
whose song was so agreeable to the world as 
his own. Regarding the composition of this 
poem, he says, " I had read a great deal, and 
heard more, concerning that romantic country, 
where I was in the habit of spending some time 
every autumn ; and the scenery of Loch Katrine 
was connected with the recollection of many a 
dear friend and merry expedition of former 
days. A lady to whom I was nearly related, 
and with whom I lived, during her whole life, 



35 

on the most brotherly terms of affection, was 
residing with me at the time when the work 
was in progress, and used to ask me what I 
coLikl possibly do, to rise so early in the morn- 
ing, (that happening to be the most convenient 
time to me for composition). At last, 1 told 
her the subject of my meditations ; and I can 
never forget the anxiety and affection expressed 
in her reply. " Do not be so rash," she said, 
'' my dearest cousin. You are already popular 
— more so, perhaps, than you yourself will be- 
lieve, or than I can even fiirly allow to your 
merits. You stand high ; do not rashly at- 
tempt to climb higher, and incur the risk of a 
fall ; foi", depend upon it, a favorite will not 
even be allowed to stumble with impunity." I 
replied to this affectionate expostulation, in the 
words of Montrose, 

*' He cither fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small, 
Who dares not put it to the touch, 

To gain or lose it all." 

If I fail, I said, it is a sign I ought never to have 
succeeded, and T will write prose for life : you 
shall see no change in my temper, nor shall I 
eat a single meal the worse. But if I succeed, 

" Up with the bonnie blue bonnet, 
The dirk and the feather an' a'. " 



36 



If I remember right, the critics were pretty 
unanimous in their commendations of the 
' Lady of the Lake ; ' but such was the popu- 
larity of the poet, that the pubhc may be fairly 
said to have taken up the matter for themselves, 
regardless of the admonition of the learned, or 
the colder cautions of critics. It has many and 
various beauties : the retreat of Ellen Douglas 
in her Bower in the Loch Katrine isle, may 
be read any time along with the fine retreat of 
Erminia in Tasso ; the rising of the Clans at 
the signal of the Fiery Cross, is more poetic 
than any arousal by message or by trumpet ; 
the highland ambush rising at the signal of 
Roderick Dhu, and then disappearing at a wave 
of his hand ; the single combat between the 
Chief and Fitz- James, and the " fetters and 
warder for the Grcieme" scene at the conclu- 
sion, are all in the truest spirit of chivalry and 
licroism. 

Scott had other pursuits, which he set as 
much store by as poetry, and he generally wish- 
ed us to understand, that he was not an over- 
zealous worshipper of the muse ; but one who 
sometimes paid her a visit, rather than belong- 
ed to her household. He resolved to avoid liv- 
ing upon the bounty, as he refused to wear the 



37 

livery, of her Parnassian ladyship ; and he was 
right in this, for her bounty, as some of our 
best poets, were they hving, could safely affirm, 
is seldom equal to the purposes of life ; in short, 
he resolved to make literature a staff and not a 
crutch. It followed, therefore, that hterary 
men were not alone to be his friends and com- 
panions. " It was my first resolution," he says, 
'• to keep as far as was in my power, abreast of 
society, continuing to maintain my place in 
general company, without yielding to the very 
natural temptation of narrowing myself to what 
is called literary society. By doing so, I imag- 
ined I should escape the besetting sin of listen- 
ing to language, which, from one motive or 
another, ascribes a very undue degree of conse- 
quence to literary pursuits, as if they were, in- 
deed, the business, rather than the amusement 
of life." The world is always willing enough 
to think lightly of intellectual works ; and it is 
not perhaps very becoming in one who owed 
his fame and importance to these matters, 
which he calls '^amusements," to help the world 
to pull them down. Literary men form a por- 
tion of society, and their productions area mat- 
ter of trade, like any other commodity ; they 
are, at least, therefore, entitled to be ranked with 
4 



38 

those who not only embellish life, but perform 
some of its business. Among other things, 
the poet prided himself not a little on his ser- 
vices in a squadron of volunteer cavahy. at a 
time when thousands, and hundreds of thou- 
sands, appeared on horse or on foot, when Pitt, 
to use the poet's own language — 

Armed the freeman's hand to guard the freeman's laws, 

" My services," he says, " were found useful 
in assisting to maintain the discipline of the 
corps, being the point on which their constitu- 
tion rendered them most amenable to military 
criticism. My attention to the corps took up a 
good deal of time ; and while it occupied many 
of the happiest hours of my life, it furnished 
an additional reason for my reluctance again 
to encounter the severe course of study, indis- 
pensable to success in the juridical profession." 
These I consider as not unpleasing traits in 
the life of this illustrious person : one is amus- 
ed to think, how useful the poet of ^ Marmion ' 
appeared in his own eyes, riding out to the 
Links of Leith, marshalling the equestrian he- 
roes of the year of grace, 1810, and how pleased 
he was, to think that he could sit in his sad- 
dle and shake his sword in the sun as well as 
the best of the band. 



39 

Between the appearance of the ' Lady of the 
Lake' and ' Rokeby,' three years elapsed, and 
these were dedicated to other matters than 
verse. Of Ashestiel, he was but the tenant ; 
and it was his wish to become the proprietor of 
some fair and pleasant spot, where he could 
build a house according to his own notions, 
and plan an orchard and garden in keeping 
with his own fancy. He found the place which 
he wanted in Abbotsford, six or seven miles 
farther down the Tweed. " It did not," said 
Scott, ''possess the romantic character of 
Ashestiel, my former residence ; but it had a 
stretch of meadow-land along the river, and 
possessed, in the phrase of the landscape gar- 
dener, ' considerable capabilities.' Above all, 
the land was my own. It had been an early 
wish of mine, to connect myself with my 
mother earth, and prosecute those experiments, 
by which a species of creative power is exer- 
cised over the face of nature." He wished too, 
he said, to be able to take the quaint counsel 
of the old writer, who advised his friend, for 
health's sake, to take a walk of a mile or two 
before breakfast, and, if possible, to do it on his 
own land. The house of Abbotsford, — called 
by a travelling Frenchman, a Romance in 



40 



stone and lime, and by the poet himself, a 
dream -like mansion — is in a sort of castellated 
gothic style, and stands closely embowered in 
woods of its great owner's own planting ; the 
library contains many rare and valuable works ; 
the armory, many arms which belonged to he- 
roes, or otherwise remarkable men ; nor is paint- 
ing or sculpture wanting to add the charms of 
art to the beauty of the place. There is beauty 
without, and plenty of accommodation within. 
The Tweed runs broad and fast past the walls ; 
the Cowden-knowes may be seen from the 
turrets : the Eildon Hills, cloven in three by 
the magic of old Michael, tow^er up so stately 
and high, that they almost overlook the house: 
the Huntley burn, where True Thomas had 
his adventure with the Fairy Queen, and the 
magnificent ruins of Melrose Abbey, are in the 
neighborhood ; and, on the whole, 

It is, I ween, a lovely spot of ground. 

Having built his house, planted his lands, 
and laid out his garden — all of which he su- 
perintended himself, and was, I have been told, 
somewhat difficult to please, he turned his at- 
tention to verse once more, and in the year 
1813, announced ' Rokeby.' Public expectation 



41 



was raised very high ; and Scott had yet to 
prove that his old works might be the greatest 
rivals his new had to encounter. The story 
of ' Rokeby ' is not no well told as that of ' The 
Lady of the Lake ; ' it has not such stirring 
trumpet-tongued chapters as ' Marmion,' nor 
has it so much tranquil grace as may be found 
in the ' Lay of the Last Minstrel ; ' neither are 
his English Buccaneers so captivating as his 
Highland Chiefs; yet it is a noble poem, 
abounding with spirit and originality. 1 am 
disposed to think the characters of Bertram 
Risinghame, and the Knave-Minstrel, are su- 
perior to any other which the poet had yet 
drawn : they more than approach the heroes 
of the Waverley Novels. On the day of publi- 
cation, I met the Editor of a London Journal 
with the volume under his arm, and inquired 
how he liked it : he gave his shoulders a shrug, 
and said, " So, so ! — a better kind of ballad 
style ! — a better kind of ballad style ! " A 
light and sarcastic poem by Moore, makes one 
lady ask another — 

Pray have you got Rokeby — for I have got mine — 
The mail-coach edition, prodigiously fine. 

Booksellers, it seems, had found it profitable to 

4* 



42 



hurry the vohime from Edinburgh by the mail 
coach. 

When Scott was writing ' Rokeby,' another 
subject, he says, presented itself : this was the 
adventure of the Bruce, as related in the 'Lord 
of the Isles.' He now took up the Scottish 
story ; finished and produced it to the world : 
it was not even so warmlv welcomed as ' Roke- 
by.' The author found out the error which 
he had committed. " I could hardly," he says, 
" have chosen a subject more popular in Scot- 
land, than anything connected with the Bruce's 
history, unless I had attempted that of Wal- 
lace ; but I am decidedly of opinion, that a 
popular or what is called a taking title, though 
well qualified to ensure the publishers against 
loss, is raiher apt to be hazardous than other- 
wise to the reputation of the author. He who 
attempts a subject of distinguished popularity, 
has not the privilege of awakening the enthu- 
siasm of his audience ; on the contrary, it is 
already awakened, and glows, it may be, more 
ardently than that of the author himself" The 
author seems to be of the same opinion as the 
world, respecting this poem ; yet it would be 
difficult to show in what it should be deemed in- 
ferior to the best. There is the same fire and im- 



43 



petiiosity of diction and narrative, and a high- 
er heroic dignity of character than in any of 
the other poems. The two Bruces are drawn 
with fine historical skill ; the death of the 
page is one of the most touching episodes ever 
written ; the voyage from Arran Isle, under 
the influence of the supernatural light, is sub- 
lime in an eminent degree ; and the battle of 
Bannockburn may almost vie with that of 
Flodden. It is inferior, because it is not better : 
the world is not satisfied with an author unless 
he is continually surpassing himself. " The 
sale of fifteen thousand copies," says Scott, 
" enabled the author to retreat from the field 
with the honor of war." 

I may class ' Don Roderick,' and ' The 
Bridal of Triermain,' and ' Harold the Daunt- 
less,' together : not because they at all resem- 
ble each other, but because I consider them 
as inferior vvorks in conception and execution, 
and not quite worthy of being named with the 
five noble romances which preceded them. 
' Don Roderick ' was sharply handled by the 
critics ; it did not suit with the aim of the 
poem, which was to rouse the spirit of resist- 
ance against an usurper in Spain and Portu- 
gal, to describe repulse and defeat. Had the 



44 



poet related the disastrous retreat of Sir John 
Moore, he would have destroyed the unity as 
well as the propriety of his poem. The chief 
fault of the work w^as the strange long step 
which the author took, from the days of King 
Roderick to those of liord Wellington ; the 
olden times mingled ungracefully with later 
events ; the story seemed like a creature with 
a broken back — the extremities were living, 
but there w^as no healthy or muscular connex- 
ion. • The Bridal of Triermain,' and ' Harold 
the Dauntless,' require no lengthened exami- 
nation ; they were chiefly remarkable for the 
vigorous images which they gave, particularly 
the latter, of times which we have no sympa- 
thy in, and for being published anonymously. 
There was something of an imitation, it seems, 
attempted in ' The Bridal of Triermain,' of the 
manner of Wilham Erskine. " As he was 
more than suspected," says Scott, " of a taste 
for poetry ; and as I took care, in several places, 
to mix something which might resemble my 
friend's feelings and manner, the train easily 
caught, and two large editions were sold." 
Scott, in other words, perceived that his works 
were not seUing in tens of thousands as for- 
merly ; he was, therefore, desirous of trying 



45 



whose fault it was. The moderate sale of ' The 
Bridal of Triermain,' and the far more mode- 
rate sale of ' Harold the Dauntless,' showed 
him that either a change had happened in pub- 
lic taste, or that readers had found another en- 
tertainer who varied the cheer, and gave them, 
as it were, a pleasant desert after his substantial 
dinners. 

In one of his late introductions, Sir Walter 
seeks to account for the failure of these poems. 
" The manner or style (he observes) which by 
its novelty attracted the public in an unusual 
degree, had now, after having been so long be- 
fore them, begun to lose its charms. For this 
there was no remedy : the harmony became 
tiresome and ordinary, and both the original 
inventor and the invention must have fallen 
into contempt, if he had not found out another 
road to public favor. He also attributed the 
decline of his poetic popularity to the imitations 
of his irregular measure and manner by other 
poets, to whom he had taught the trick of fence, 
and who could handle their weapons nearly or 
quite as well as himself. "Besides all this (he 
observed), a mighty and unexpected rival was 
advancing on the stage — a rival not in poetical 
powers only, but in attracting popularity, in 



46 



which the present writer had preceded better 
men than himself. The reader will see that 
Byron is here meant, who, after a little vatila- 
tion of no great promise, now appeared as a 
serious candidate in the first canto of ' Childe 
Harold.' There was a depth in his thought, 
an eager abundance in his diction, which ar- 
gued full confidence in the inexhaustible re- 
sources of which he felt himself possessed." 

Had Lord Byron preceded Scott, the novel- 
ty of his style, and the influence of his far- 
fetched subjects, would have worn off, and Sir 
Walter, with his romantic epics, might have 
taken the wind out of his Lordship's sails in 
the midst of his voyage. Byron added the 
advantages of a traveller, who had strange 
stories to tell about Turks bearded like the 
pard, and maritime desperadoes who infested 
the ruined temples of the land where Sappho 
died and Homer sung, to the attractions of a 
poetry singularly bold and original : he was 
also considered as a young man, who had been 
" rated on the Rialto " most ungenerously by 
one of those critical pests who have much wit 
and little understanding : and, moreover, had 
the farther merit of being a Lord, and 
reckoned something wildish among the softer 



47 



part of the tilled population. Against these 
manifold charms Scott had nothing to offer but 
what he had offered already, and I think he 
acted wisely in retiring from the contest ; to 
say the truth, he had continued it as long as 
the combat was not desperate. There was 
something of a mystery about Lord Byron, as 
well as about all the characters which he drew, 
and which the public, always a-gape for novel- 
ties, sought in vain to penetrate : his poems 
came, therefore, like a devilled fowl, or a curried 
lark, or any other of those spiced dishes by 
which that arch sorcerer the cook renews a 
man's appetite after he has been gorged like a 
boa constrictor. I may add to all this, that 
the age had been particularly prolific of poets 
and poetry: in truth, the land was deluged 
with verse, and much of it of a high order ; 
and as the island, for these hundred years, has 
not much encouraged works of imagination, 
there was scarcely room for two great manu- 
facturers of epic song. 

Scott was believed to be at work on a new 
poem, when the world was suddenly astonished 
at the appearance of a warrior in the lists of 
literary adventure, who, hke the Black Knight 
in ' Ivanhoe,' chose not only to fight with his 



48 



beaver down, but refused to raise it and show 
himself when he had overcome all opponents. 
This was the author of Waverley. Many, it 
is true, were quite satisfied who the magician 
was, who wrought these marvels, though he 
continued invisible amid the circle wliere he 
performed his enchantments. In ten thousand 
whispers, it was stated to be Scott ; one re- 
membered a story, which he related to the poet, 
now wrought into Waverley ; another had told 
him a curious sally of w^it, and here it was 
embalmed forever and ever ; while others had 
helped him to incidents equally strange and 
extraordinary. Another class were content to 
point out the quarry and the grove where he 
had found stone and timber, for the gods of 
public idolatry. Some, however, w'ere heard 
to argue against the probability of Sir Walter 
being the author, because, said they, Waverley 
followed too close upon the • Lord of the Isles,' 
to be the offspring of the same hand ; nay, 
when one of these positive gentlemen insisted 
that it was not even a Scotchman w^ho wrote 
the novel, and his friend pointei out touches of 
character, which required a long residence in 
the north to master, he smartly answered, " Not 
at all necessary, Sir, to go to Scotland to study 



49 

the character — did MiltoQ go to hell to study 
devils ? " 

The origin of these magnificent fictions is 
curious. " In the year 1805," says Scott, " I 
threw together about one-third part of the first 
vokime of Waverley. It was advertised to be 
published by the late Mr. John Ballantyne, un- 
der the name of ' Waverley, or, 'Tis fifty years 
since,' a title afterwards altered to ' 'Tis sixty 
3^ears since,' that the actual date of publication 
might correspond with the period in which the 
scene was laid. Having proceeded as far, I 
think, as the seventh chapter, I showed my 
work to a critical friend, whose opinion was 
unfavorable : and having then some poetical 
reputation, I was unwilhng to risk the loss of 
it by attempting a new style of composition. I 
therefore threw aside the work I had com- 
menced, without either reluctance or remon- 
strance. This portion of the manuscript was 
laid aside in the drawer of an old writing-desk, 
which, on my first coming to Abbotsford in 
1811, was placed in a lumber garret, and en- 
tirely forgotten. Thus, though I sometimes 
turned my thoughts to the continuation of the 
romance, yet, as I could not find what I had 
already written, and was too indolent to attempt 
5 



50 



to write it anew from memory, I as often laid 
aside all thoughts of that nature." Still the 
subject had hold of his fancy, and it was with 
no small pleasure that he discovered accident- 
ally, while seeking for fishing tackle for a friend, 
the long-lost manuscrij3t : he thought, he said, 
without being so presumptuous vis to hope to 
emulate the rich humor, pathetic tenderness 
and admirable tact of his friend Miss Edge- 
worth, that he might be able to do something 
for Scotland, like what that lady had accom- 
plislied for Ireland ; and he hoped to make up 
for want of talent, by his knowledge of the 
land and the people. A conclusion which he 
wrote for Strutt's ' Queen-Hoo Hall ' had also, 
it seems, a share in this new inspiration. In 
truth, Scott appears willing to impute these ro- 
mances to any cause save the right one — 
namely, a burning desire for higher fame, and 
a w^sh to soothe down the spirit within him, 
which raged like a chained demon, till tran- 
quilHzed by a fresh work. 

When Napoleon escaped alone from Elba, 
and appeared at Paris with a hundred thou- 
sand men at his back, the world was scarcely 
more ccnfounded, than the people of Britain 
were, w^hen Waverley burst out upon them. 



61 



The more learned and critical portion of the 
country did not seem to relish it much at first; 
and I heard a gentleman affirm, who is now 
loud in his praise, that the only humorous pas- 
sage in ' Waverley,' is where Mrs. Macleary 
cries out to the Baron of Bradwardine and 
Balmawhapple, " Will ye fight, Sirs, in a 
poor widow's house, and sae muckle gude lea 
land in the country? " Nay, Hazlitt, of whom 
I hoped better things, assured me that he had 
not read any of the "Waverley Novels till Rob 
Roy came out, when he found that he could no 
longer carry on conversation without quoting 
or alluding to them. Critics examined the 
work by rule, and finding that all its parts 
were not proportioned, a sort of epic scale, which 
serves them instead of natural good judgment, 
pronounced it defective, while the less learned 
portion of the community, wh; consider all ex- 
cellent which delights them, admitted Waverley 
to their bosoms at once. It was no difficult 
matter to perceive the high qualities of the 
work. The scenes on which he displayed his 
dramatis personae, were the mountain and the 
flood : the characters which he introduced were 
generally of a poetic or heroic order ; the inci- 
dents which he related, had the double charm 



52 



of a domestic and public interest, and the whole 
was grouped and thrown together with singular 
freedom and truth. The Baron of Bradwar- 
dine, Fergus Mac Ivor, Colonel Talbot, Ma- 
dam Nosebag, Duncan Macwheeble, Davie 
Gellatly, Donald Bean Lean, and gifted Gilfil- 
lan, seem all personal acquaintances : we never 
think of them as airy abstractions. '' I have 
seldom felt more satisfaction," says Sir Walter, 
" than when returning from a pleasure voyage, 
I found ' Waverley ' in the zenith of popularity, 
and public curiosity in full cry after the name 
of the author." To preserve the incognito, 
Ballantyne had the original manuscript tran- 
scribed : the corrections by Scott were copied 
by his friend, for the printers, and so the work 
went on ; nor was there a single instance of 
faithlessness on the part of those who, from 
their situation, possessed themselves of the 
secret. 

The public admiration was nothing abated 
about ' Waverley,' when ' Guy Mannering ' 
made its appearance. The characters were of 
a different stamp — the story was of a domestic 
nature — and the true heroes and heroines were 
shepherds, and gipsies, and smugglers. The 
country claimed Andrew Dinmont, Dirk Hat- 



53 



teraickj Sheriff Pleydell, and Meg Merrilies, as 
familiar acquaintances : they had hunted and 
fought with the first — dealt with the second — 
played at high jinks, or taken down a deposi- 
tion with the third — or bought horn spoons 
and had their fortunes told by the fourth ; — nay, 
they knew Gilbejt Glossin himself; had par- 
taken of ale and toasted cake at Mrs. Macan- 
dlish's ; and were certain as the sun shone of 
having heard the story of the birth of young 
Bertram from Jock Jabos, as he drove them in 
a post-chaise along the wild roads of Galloway. 
Many a fair sheet has been printed on the 
subject of the prototype of Meg Merrilies ; and 
the author himself relates the story of a gipsy 
wife who rivalled Meg herself in generosity. 
I think 1 see something like the outward form 
of the Galwegian sibyl, in the beggar woman 
of Wordsworth. 

Her skin was of Egyptian brown ; 

Haughty as if her eye had seen 

Its own hght to a distance thrown, 

She towered — fit person for a queen 

To head those ancient Amazonian files, 

Or ruling bandit's wife among the Grecian isles. 

It is a note-worthy matter, that w^iile Scott 
was pouring out romance after romance, Lord 

5* 



54 

Byron was pouring out poem after poem. The 
prose of the one and the poetry of the other 
were so popular, and at the same time so ex- 
cellent, that no other author could obtain a 
hearing. It was also curious to remark, that 
as Byron had certainly beaten Scott by song, 
so as assuredly Scott was vanquishing his 
Lordship by prose ; for I think no one will con- 
tend, that the poems of the one were ever so 
popular with all ranks as the novels of the oth- 
er. The title of ' The Antiquary ' puzzled 
the public a little when announced ; and I am 
not sure that it was so general a favorite at first 
as it became afterwards, when the fev^er of a 
first perusal was over, and a second reading 
and reflection came. The Antiquar}^ himself, 
the Mucklebackits, and Edie Ochiltree, are all 
masterly originals : there is less bustle and less 
action than in ' Waverley ; ' but there is the 
same living life, the same truth of nature, and 
now and then something more lofty and sub- 
lime than aught the author had hitherto done. 
The scene in which Miss Wardour is rescued 
from the tide, and more particularly the chant- 
ing of the ballad of the Harlaw by the Muckle- 
backit hag, are without a parallel in the lan- 
guage, unless the latter may be matched with 



55 



that terrific scene in ' Old Mortality,' where 
Morton is condemned to death by the Came- 
ronians, and Habbakuk Mucklevvrath antici- 
pates the hour of execution by setting forward 
the clock. 

To conceal the hand that penned so rapidly 
these charming fictions, Scott still openly kept 
the field as an author, and not only wrote a 
poem on the battle of Waterloo, but a prose ac- 
count of that memorable strife, which far excels 
the description he afterwards inserted in his 
' Life of Napoleon.' The poem, though full 
of the whirlwind of battle, and vivid and ani- 
mated in an extreme degree, met with a sharp 
reception from the critics ; — not so Paul's prose 
relation, which, coming without a name, and 
evidently the work of one who had made in- 
quiries among the chief officers, and mastered 
all the incidents and localities of Waterloo, was 
greeted with much cheering and many wel- 
comes. During this busy period, all writers 
seemed busy, save Scott : — to those friends who 
visited him he was seldom invisible. He per- 
formed the duties of a friend to his friends — of 
a father to his children — of a master to his 
household — and of a sheriflf" to the county — 
soothing differences and healing discord ; and 



66 



did not appear at all oppressed with these du- 
ties : he still was at leisure, and found time to 
arrange and publish the Poems of Anna Sew- 
ard, the Life and Works of Swift, Lord 
Somers's Tracts, Sir Ralph Sadler's State Pa- 
pers, and the Border Antiquities of England 
and Scotland. All this strengthened the ar- 
guments of those — and they were many, who 
refused to believe that he was the author of the 
Waverley Novels. Several persons, to whom, 
either in seriousness or derision, they were at- 
tributed, put on a look of reserve and mystery, 
and talked in the manner of men embarrassed 
by a secret, of which they dreaded the discovery. 
All this must have been amusing in a high de- 
gree to such a man as Scott, who had an eye 
and an ear for the ridiculous, and could enjoy 
the absurdities of his friends and acquaintances 
without seeming moved. 

It was a new pleasure to the tourists, in the 
enjoyment of the scenery of the 'Lady of the 
Lake,' the ' Lord of the Isles,' and • Waverley,' 
to have ' Rob Roy ' put into their hands. With 
his foot once more on the heather, and the bon- 
net on his brow, the author seemed inspired 
with fresh spirit ; Rob Roy himself, Baillie Jar- 
vie, Andrew Fairservice, the Dougal creature, 



57 



and the Osbaldistones, one and all, were wel- 
comed as additions to the great national stock 
of imaginary characters. One of the charms 
of the work was Diana Vernon, the heath- 
flower of Cheviot ; her extreme loveliness — 
hei" singular boldness and freedom of character 
— her wit and her inimitable playfulness — and, 
more than all, her fine sense and warmth of 
heart captivated even critics, who could not 
help confessing that, though she had too much 
boldness of manner, she was the sweetest and 
best of all the author's female creations. I re- 
member, after her appearance on horsebackj 
all our London ladies, who could trust them- 
selves off their feet, turned equestrians, and the 
drives and roads were filled with trotting and 
galloping Dianas. 

' Old Mortahty ' followed • Rob Roy.' There 
is perhaps finer discrimination of character in 
it than in any of its companions : the author 
felt that he had a difficult game to play : the 
Cameronians still existed as a body, with many 
old prejudices, and were likely to resent any 
deviation from historic accuracy ; and, what 
was still more important, the whole body of 
Presbyterians, though disliking the exclusive 
lenets of Cameron and Cargill, beheved them 



58 



right in resisting persecution ; in fact, they look 
upon the battles of Airds-Moss and Bothwell 
Brigg, as fought in the great cause of Calvinism 
against Lutheranism ; and are disposed to be 
touchy, whenever such matters are otherwise 
than gently handled. When I add to all this, 
that Scott himself w^as a member of the suf- 
fering remnant of the episcopal church, and 
was consequently considered as no great lover 
of those who preferred to drink at the well- 
spring of Calvin, 1 have said enough to show, 
that a story, which involved the characters of 
the chief leaders, was likely to be keenly, and 
even curiously examined. He has, how^ever, 
delineated the characters of Burley on the one 
side, and of Claverhouse on the other, with 
wonderful life and truth: — both shedders of 
blood without merc}^ or remorse, at the call of 
mistaken honor, or^ misunderstood religion : 
both eminently brave and skilful : — one fight- 
ing for princes, who merited no such support—- 
and the other for a party who afterwards dis- 
owned him ; and both perishing according to 
character, — Burley in a bloody, but obscure 
skirmish, and the fiery Graeme in a stern battle, 
with the sound of victory in his ear. Lord 
Evandale and Morton represent the more gen-' 



59 



erous and amiable qualities of the factions ; 
while Niel Blane stands between both, and 
decants his ale, and plays on the pipes to either. 
Poor, meek and generous B issy Maclure qual- 
ifies'the more fiery and eloquent Mause Head- 
rigg-, and Jenny Dennison and the gallant Cud- 
die keep up an image of true love and domes- 
tic attachment, seasoned with matchless humor 
and naivete and selfishness. The figure of 
that intrepid preacher, Macbriar, is ever before 
us, when w^e think of sermons in the fields ; 
and the eloquent madness of Habbakuk Muck- 
lewrath rings frequently in our ears. The 
Cameronians w^ere not at all offended at the 
notice taken of their leaders, and the sentiments 
imputed to them : they recognized the per- 
fect truth of the picture, and rejoiced that they 
had found an historian to bid them hve and 
not die. The wild scene where Burley main- 
tained his imaginary combat with Satan, is 
Creehope Linn, near Dumfries ; Sir Walter 
informed me, that he was a visiter of the Linn 
in his youth, when one of his brothers was at 
Wallace Hall school; and that the singular 
chambers, which the busy stream had fash- 
ioned out of the freestone rocks, and in which 
the persecuted Covenanters found refuge, w^re 



60 

quite familiar to him. The wandering Inscrip- 
tion Cutter was also a native of the same par- 
ish ; and the old kirkyard of Dalgarnock, beau- 
tifully situated on Nithside, is the place of the 
imaginary interview between him and the au- 
thor. I may also add, that part of the narra- 
tive was colored by a long conversation which 
Sir Walter held with an Annandale Johnstone, 
on the subject of free will, effectual calling, and 
predestination. 

It is supposed that the complaints which 
some captious Presbyterians made regarding 
the injustice done to the Covenanters in ' Old 
Mortality,' induced Scott to resume the subject 
in his next great work, the ' Heart of Mid Lo- 
thian,' and show, in the family of the Deanses, 
the softened features of the sect. Douce Da- 
vid is certainly a most delightful oddity : his 
disputes on the great litigated point of patron- 
age with Duncan Knockdunder, whose notions 
were not at all scriptural, and his various 
counsellings concerning rotations of corps, 
with poor widow Butler, are alike excellent. 
But with his daughters, by different spouses, 
and with Madge Wildfire, the interest of the 
fiction abides. Jeanie Deans is copied from a 
young woman of humble degree in Dumfries- 



61 



shire, who obtained the queen's pardon for an 
erring sister by her own eloquent intercession ; 
in token of which, it was one of the last acts 
of Sir Walter's life, to erect a monument to her 
memory in Irongray kirkyard y — and Madge 
Wildfire is little more than a faithful delinea- 
tion of }Door Peggy Macdonald, who went mad 
about a natural child, and wandered through 
Dumfries and Galloway singing snatches of 
old songs, uttering quaint witty sayings, and 
drawing the characters of all who annoyed her 
with words of aquafortis rather than of honey : 
moreover, she was usually known by the name 
of Mrs. Cazey, from frequently singing a song 
of that name ; but those who wished to be well 
with her called her Marsraret Macdonald. She 
was a tall slim person, with a Roman nose, 
and a look, in her lucid hours, beaming with 
sense and wit. To take a heroine out of a 
prison, and select characters from among cow- 
feeders and smugglers, was a bold step ; and 
over such materials no one could have tri- 
umphed but Scott. 

It was thought the author wished to show 

that high hfe had its miseries too, when he 

wrote the 'Bride of Lammermoor.' There is 

an air of sadness shed largely over this whole 

6 



62 



composition : though we dislike the touchy 
haughtiness of Ravenswood, we give him our 
sympathy largely, as the last of his race, and 
one whose fate has been settled by prophecy 
before, as the witch- wife said, " the sark gaed 
o'er his head." There is a poetic, a tragic 
grandeur about the romance, which lifts it high 
into the regions of imagination : the approach- 
ing fate of the Master is shadowed out in almost 
every page ; the croaking of the old crones ; 
the conversation with John Mortsheugh, — it is 
needless to particularize more. — all indicate 
coming destruction. With the exception of 
^ Kenilworth,' it is the most melancholy of all 
the works of Scott. The scene is laid on 
property belonging to the family of Hall ; and 
I was present when Captain Basil Hall pur- 
chased sixty-one pages of the original manu- 
script for fourteen guineas : it is generally 
known, that the outline of the story is true, 
and that this great domestic tragedy was 
wrought in a family of respectability and name. 
The 'Legend of Montrose' accompanied the 
* Bride of Lammermoor,' and is chiefly remark- 
able for the character of Sir Dugald Dalgetty, 
whose exact resemblance to the Scottish chiefs 
— the Leslies, Hamiltons, Ramsays, Munros, 



63 



and Cunninghams, who led the seven thou- 
sand Scottish warriors under Gustavus Adol- 
phusj — I would not have any one to assert, 
vuiless they can bring forward better proof of 
the fact, than what I think my illustrious friend 
had to offer. The truth is, these men were 
mostly religious enthusiasts ; and though there 
were some among them, — one of the Ramsays, 
for instance, — who thought of earthly state and 
dignity a little too much, — they were a high- 
souled and chivalrous band, who prayed and 
fought till they saw freedom of conscience re- 
stored to the whole of Germany. We have no 
other quarrel with Sir Dugald : we like his 
eternal speeches about Gustavus — the pleasing 
glimpses which he gives us of foreign service 
— his quaint pedantry — his bravery, ruled by 
the amount of pay ; and above all, his behavior 
in the dungeon, when he escapes from hisfet- 
ters, and leaves Maccallumore in his stead. We 
like him too when the ball penetrates his thigh, 
and he exclaims, " I always told the great 
Gustavus that taslets should be made musket 
proof! " And we like him too that he is wil- 
ling to be executed, rather than enter upon a 
new engagement for a year, with a week of 
the old one to run. He was a miUtary moralist. 



64 



The first time that I had the happiness of 
being introduced to the Author of Waverley, 
was soon after the publication of ' Ivanhoe,' 
when he came to London, and the king made 
him Sir Walter Scott, of Abbotsford, Baronet. 
This was in the early part of the year 1820. 
1 had seen him in Edinburgh in the year of 
Marmion's appearance, and, to tell the truth, I 
went there almost on purpose to see him. He 
lived then in North Castle street : he was full 
cheeked and fair to look upon ; walked with a 
slight halt, and seemed in every respect one of 
the most powerful men of the North. He was 
much changed when I met him again in Lon- 
don : his face was grown thin, his brow 
wrinkled, and his hair grey : during the period 
of the composition of ' Ivanhoe,' a grievous ill- 
ness attacked him, which brought him nigh 
the grave, and he was not even then quite re- 
covered. It was during those days of suffering, 
that his neighbor. Lord Buchan, waited, it is 
said, on Lady Scott, and after talking of the 
light which was too soon to be removed from 
the land, begged her to intercede with her illus- 
trious husband, to do him the honor of being 
buried in Dryburgh. " The place," said the 
Earl, " is very beautiful — just such a place as 



65 



the poet loves, and as he has a fine taste that 
way, he is sure of being gratified with my 
offer." Scott, it is reported, smiled when this 
was told him, and good-humoredly promised to 
give Lord Buchan the refusal, since he seemed 
so solicitous : the vain Lord was laid in Dry- 
burgh churchyard first, and his illustrious 
neighbor has followed. The owners of Abbots- 
ford and Dryburgh, I have heard, conversed 
upon all subjects, save one — namely, the death 
of the Duke of Clarence : his lordship averred, 
that his ancestor killed the Prince, at Beauge, 
with a truncheon : Scott knew that his own 
ancestor Sir Allan Swinton slew him by a 
stroke of his spear in the face. 

When I went to Sir Walter's residence in 
Piccadilly, 1 had much of the same palpitation 
of heart which Boswell experienced when in- 
troduced to Johnson ; he welcomed me with 
such kind and complimentary words, that con- 
fusion and fear alike fled. He turned the con- 
versation upon song, and said, he had long 
wished to know me, on account of some songs 
whichVere reckoned old, but which he was as- 
sured were mine. " At all events," said he, 
^.' they are not old — they are far too good to be 
old : I dare say you know what songs I mean." 
6* 



66 



I was now much embarrassed ; I neither own- 
ed the songs nor denied them, but said, I hoped 
to see him soon again, for that, if he were 
wiUing to sit, my friend, Mr. Chantrey, was 
anxious to make his bust — as a memorial, to 
preserve in his collection, of the Author of 
' Marmion.' To this he consented. While 
Sir Walter remained in London, we had several 
conversations, and I was glad to see that he 
was sometimes pleased with what I said, as 
well as with what I did. So much was he 
sought after while he sat to Chantrey, that 
strangers begged leave to stand in the sculptor's 
galleries, to see him as he went in and out. 
The bust was at last finished in marble ; the 
sculptor labored most anxiously, and I never 
saw him work more successfully : in one long 
sitting of three hours he chiselled the whole 
face over, communicating to it the grave humor 
and comic penetration for which the original 
was so remarkable. This fine work is now in 
Abbotsford, with an inscription, saying, it is a 
present to Sir Walter Scott from Francis 
Chantrey. — I hope it will never be elsewhere. 
One morning Chantrey asked me how I 
liked ' Ivardioe.' I said, the descriptions were 
admirable, and that the narrative flowed on in a 
full stream, but I thought in individual por- 



67 



traiture it was not equal to those romances 
where the author had his foot on Scottish 
ground. " You speak like a Scotchman," said 
Chantrey ; " I must speak like an English- 
man : the scenery is just, and the characters in 
keeping : I know every inch of ground where 
the tournament was held — where Front de 
Bceuf 's castle stood, and even where that pious 
priest the Curtal Friar had his cell by the bless- 
ed well of St. Dunstan's — what Rob Roy is to 
you, Ivanhoe is to me." Sir Walter smiled : 
he neither shunned the subject nor seemed de- 
sirous to discuss it : I remarked, however, that 
he did not praise the novels, and this exactly 
agreed with a review of ' Old Mortality,' which 
appeared in the Quarterly.) written, as 1 have 
good reason to know, by the hand of Scott 
himself. This was at the urgent desire of the 
editor, who probably thought to detect the real 
writer of the romances by this stratagem : he 
contrived to pen a review which contains much 
collateral illustration, and little or no criticism. 
The nearest approach to admission that I ever 
heard him make, was when I was describing 
to him a sort of wandering mendicant, who 
declared he earned his bread and clothes by 
telling queer stories — he said, with a laugh, 



68 



" O Allan, don't abuse God's gifts — we live by 
telling queer stories ourselves." When he dined 
with the King, one of the company asked him 
" Was he not the author of the Waverley Nov- 
els ? " Sir Walter, who had made up his mind 
against such emergencies, eluded the question. 
He spoke of my pursuits and prospects in 
life with interest and feeling ; and of my at- 
tempts in prose and verse, in a way which 
showed that he had read them ; and inquired 
what I was doing with my pen : I said I was 
collecting into four volumes the songs of Scot- 
land, such as were most remarkable for poetic 
feeling-^ — for their humor or their picture of man- 
ners. '' I can help you," he said, " to something 
old. Did you ever hear the old song sungj 
which says — 

" There dwelt a man into the west, 

And O, gin he was cruel, 
For on his bridal night at een, 

He sat up an' grat for gruel ; 
They brought to him a good sheep-head, 

A bason and a towel : 
Gar take thae whim-whams far frae me, 

1 winna want my gruel." 

After having dictated several other curious old 
verses, he said, " But you ought to write some- 
thing original. There's the ' Mermaid of Gal- 



69 



loway ' ; you might make that into a dramatic 
piece with songs, and try it on the stage." I 
answered, " But what shall I do with the tail? " 
— " The tail, indeed," said he — and laughed. 
I wish I had followed his advice ; the suhject 
is a fine one, and much according to my own 
fancy, and with regard to the scaly train, a 
Mermaid has no more right to sucli an encum- 
brance, than the Devil has to horns and hoofs. 
I said that I had made up the resemblance of 
a drama, and if he w^ould look at it it would be 
kind ; he not only looked at Sir ' Mameluke 
Maxwell,' but wrote me a letter respecting it, in 
which he says, 

" I have perused twice, my dear Allan, your 
interesting manuscript, and that with no little 
interest. Many parts of the poetry are eminent- 
ly beautiful, though I fear the great length of 
the piece, and some obscurity of the plot, would 
render it unfit for dramatic representation. 
There is also a fine tone of supernatural action 
and impulse spread over the whole work, which, 
I think, a common audience would not be 
likely to adopt or comprehend, though I own 
on me it had a very powerful effect. Speaking 
of dramatic composition in general, I think it 
almost essential (though the rule be most dif- 



70 



ficult in practice) that the plot or business of 
the piece should advance with every line that 
is spoken. The fact is, the drama is addressed 
chiefly to the eyes ; and as much as can be by 
any possibility represented on the stage, should 
neither be told nor described. Of the miscel- 
laneous part of a large audience, many do not 
understand, and many cannot hear neither 
narrative or description, but are solely intent 
upon the action exhibited. It is, I conceive, 
for this reason, that very bad plays, written by 
performers themselves, often contrive to get 
through, and not without applause ; while oth- 
ers immeasurably superior, in point of poetical 
merit, fail, merely because the author is not 
sufficiently possessed of the trick of the scene^ 
or enough aware of the importance of a maxim 
pronounced by no lessof a performer than Punch 
himself^ — at least he was the last authority from 
whom I heard it, — Push on, keep moving ! 
Now, in your dramatic effort, the interest not 
onl}?^ stands still, but sometimes retrogrades. It 
contains notwithstanding, many passages of 
eminent beauty ; many specimens of the most 
interesting dialogue. On the whole, if it is not 
fitted for the modern stage, I am not sure that 
its very imperfections do not render it more fit 



71 

for the closet, for we certainly do not read with 
the greatest pleasure those plays which act 
best. 

" If, however, 3^011 should at any time wish 
to become a candidate for dramatic laurels, I 
would advise you, in the first place, to consult 
some professional person of judgment and 
taste. I should regard friend Terry as an ex- 
cellent Mentor ; and I believe he would concur 
with me in recommending, that at least one- 
third of the drama be retrenched, that the plot 
should be rendered simple, and the motives 
more obvious^ and I think the powerful lan- 
guage, and many of the situations, might have 
their full effect upon the audience. I am un- 
certain if I have made myself sufficiently un- 
derstood : — but I would say, for example, that 
it is ill explained by what means Comyn and 
his gang, who land as shipwrecked men, be- 
come at once possessed of the old lord's do- 
mains, merely by killing and taking possession. 
I am aware of what you mean, namely, that, 
being attached to the then rulers, he is sup- 
ported in his ill-acquired power by their author- 
ity. But this is imperfectly brought out, and 
escaped me at the first reading. The super- 
stitious motives also, which induced the shep- 



72 



herds to delay their vengeancej are not hkely 
to be intelligible to the generality of the hear- 
ers. It would seem more probable that the 
young Baron should have led his faithful vas- 
sals to avenge the death of his parents ; and it 
has escaped me what prevents him from taking 
this direct and natural course. Besides, it is, I 
believe, a rule, and it seems a good one, that 
one single interest, to which every other is sub- 
ordinate, should occupy the whole play, each 
separate object having just the effect of a mill- 
dam, sluicing off a certain portion of the inter- 
est and sympathy, which should move on with 
increasing fervor and rapidity to the catastro- 
phe. Now, in your work, there are several 
divided points of interest — there is the murder 
of the old Baron — the escape of his wife — that 
of his son — the loss of his bride — the villanous 
artifices of Comyn, and acceleration of the 
vengeance due to his crimes. I am sure your 
own excellent sense, which I admire as much 
as I do your genius, will give me credit for tbjs 
frankness in the matter : I only know, that I 
do not know many persons on whose perform- 
ances I would venture so much criticism. 
Adieu, my real and esteemed friend — yours 
truly, Walter Scott." 



73 



I have, at the risk of being thought vain, 
inserted my iiUistrious friend's letter at full 
length ; tlie dramatic directions in composition 
which he lays down, are natural, and had I 
been able to have followed them, my success 
might have been greater. How Comyn kept 
possession after the murder, arose not only 
from the strength of his party, but from his 
being the lineal heir, supposing his kinsman 
removed ; this relationship I did not make 
plain enough, and so the objection is good. 
A writer satisfies his own mind, that his story 
is simple and clear, and wonders sometimes 
that the eyes of his friends are not so penetra- 
ting as his own ; but, whenever an objection of 
obscurity is raised, I would advise the writer to 
clear it up at once. I made a number of al- 
terations, but could not get clear of the original 
sin of the performance — namely, a certain per- 
plexity of plot. When I published it, no one 
was altogether unkind, save, I was told, the 
Rev. Dr. Smedley, who treated it in the Crit- 
ical Review with much contempt ; he could 
see no poetry in the language, nor originality 
in the characters. On the same day that this 
not very charitable attack on a new writer 
was published, the ' Fortunes of Nigel ' ap- 
7 



74 



peared, in the introduction to wliich, it was the 
pleasure of the author to speak of my diamatic 
attempt in the spirit of his letter : this far more 
than compensated for the severity of the other, 
and gave me some sort of rank as a poet, wliich, 
I am glad to know, the giver believed I have 
since maintained. When the manuscript of 
the ' Fortunes of Nigel ' was sold by auction, I 
was vain enough to wish to possess a work, in 
which my name stood embalmed in the hand- 
writing of Scott ; but that, as well as others, 
brought prices beyond my means : it would 
have been well had some generous person pur- 
chased the whole Waverley Manuscripts, and 
placed them in the British Museum, or — in a 
better sanctuary still — the library of Abbots- 
ford. 

While Sir Walter was busied with his sec- 
ond series of National Romances, he found 
time to write ' Halidon Hill,' a dramatic sketch 
of great beauty ; full of heroic feehng and he- 
roic character, and which, for pathos, may take 
rank with the most touching labors of the se- 
rious Muse. The story of Sir Alan Swinton 
and young Gordon, is one of the most chival- 
rous and moving scenes in all the compass of 
tragic song. It was not very warmly received : 



75 



indeed, whenever Sir Walter Scott wrote 
anonymousl}^, praise of the truth and beauty 
of his productions was on every hp, and in 
every review : when he added his name, the 
mercury of pubUc admiration fell nearer the 
freezing point : this, " let learned clerks ex- 
plain." 1 am afraid the anecdote is not to the 
honor of human nature. Constable gave him, 
it is said, a thousand poimds for ' Halidon 
Hill ; ' and the applause which he w^as com- 
manding anonymously, no doubt soothed him 
for the caprice of the world, and for the cap- 
tiousness of criticism. 

I saw Sir Walter during the visits which he 
afterwards paid to London. He conversed 
with singular ease, and whatever he said was 
so clearly expressed, and so graphic withal, 
that it might have been printed at once. This 
reminds me of what a bookseller told me — that 
Scott related to him some particulars about the 
origin of one of his characters in the Waverley 
novels, with v» hich he was so struck, that he 
begged him to write it down. He did so, and 
the whole was, he was sure, word for word 
with what had been spoken. I have said (hat 
I informed him of my intended collection of the 
songs of Scotland ; in one of my letters to him. 



76 



I told him that I had commenced the work, 
" I am glad (he thus wrote) that 3^011 are about 
Scottish song ; no man has contributed more 
beautiful effusions to enrich it. Here and there 
I would pluck a few flowers from your posie, 
to give what remains an effect of greater sim- 
plicity ; but luxuriance can only be the fault 
of genius, and many of your songs are, I think, 
unmatched." I put down these passages from 
his letters, of which I have upwards of a score, 
to show that he always mixed sound critical 
counsel with his commendations, and flow well 
he merited the eulogium of James Hogg, (hat 
he was a most honest and conscientious adviser 
in all matters, Hterary and otherwise. This 
is yet more plainly set forth in another letter : 
" I am very much unaccustomed to offer 
criticisms, and when I do so, it is because I 
believe in my soul that I am endeavoring to 
pluck away the weeds which hide flowers that 
are well worthy of cultivation. In your case 
the richness of your language and fertility of 
your imaginations are the snares against which 
I would warn you : if the one had been poor,> 
and the other costive, I would never have made 
remarks, which could never do good, while 
they only gave pain. Did you ever read 



11 



Savage's ' Wanderer ? ' If not, do so ; and 
you will see distinctly the fault which I think 
attaches to 'Sir Marmaduke Maxwell' — a 
want of distinct precision and intelligibility 
about the story, which counteracts, especially 
with ordinary readers, the effect of beautiful 
and forcible diction, poetical imager}'-, and 
animated description." 1 would fain persuade 
myself that all this good counsel and thrice as 
much more from the same excellent friend, 
was net utterly thrown away upon me. 

When I next saw Sir Walter, King George 
was about to be crowned, and he had come to 
London to make one in the ceremony. This 
was an affair which came within the range 
of his taste ; with the processions of the old 
religion and the parade of chivalry, he was 
familiar ; and when he called on me, he talked 
of the magnificent scene which Westminster 
Abbey would present pn the morrow, and in- 
quired if I intended to go and look at it. Now 
I happen to be one of those persons who are 
not at all dazzled with grand processions and 
splendid dresses, and the glitter and parade of 
either court or camp ; and when I said that I 
had no curiosity that way, having, when I was 
young, witnessed the crowning of King Crispin 



78 



in Dumfries, he burst into a laugh, and said, 
" That's not unlike our friend Hogg : I asked 
him if he woukl accompany me, and he stood 
balancing the matter between the Coronation 
and St. Coswell's Fair, and at last the fair 
carried it." Scott, since I had seen him lasty 
had given the world several fresh works of 
great beauty and variety : his genius had 
driven other competitors out of the market, and 
though some of the critics said they saw a 
falling off, this was not perceived by the 
multitude, who expressed nothing but im- 
patience to devour every work which wore the 
Waverley stamp. It is remarkable that in 
' The Abbot,' and also in ' The Monastery,' he 
introduced supernatural agency, and sometimes, 
in my opinion, with wonderful effect: he had 
tried it slightly in Waverle}', where the vision 
of the Bodach Glas announces the approaching 
fate of Fergus Mac Ivor ; a passage which I 
could never read without a shudder. The 
White Maid of Avenel is a spirit of a more 
lively kind, and performs her ministering in 
the matter of Christy of the Clinthill, and the 
Sacristan, with not a little dexterity as well as 
malice. I, however, think the burial and 
raising of Piercie Shafton, a clumsy affair : in 



79 



truth, whenever the supernatural descends to 
deeds, our belief begins to fail. The rise of 
Halbert Glendinning from his low estate by 
bravery and by valor, is in the author's best 
manner ; the vale of Glendearg Hes near 
Abbotsford, on the other side of the Tweed. 
The sharp admonitions of the critics induced 
Sir Walter to forbear for the future the super- 
natural. 

Of all Scott's succeeding romances, those 
most to my hking are the ' Fortunes of Nigel,' 
for the sake of King James, Richie Moniplies, 
and Sir Mungo Malagrowther : ' Quentin Dur- 
■ward,' as showing how fortune and rank may 
be achieved by discretion, and bravery; and 
promptitude of soul, not to speak of King 
Lewis, and La Balafre, and the Maugrabin : 
' The Talisman,' for the characters of Ricliard, 
Saladin, and Prince David ; and ' The Fair 
Maid of Perth,' for the lesson which the author 
has taught us, how to make a hero worthy the 
days of chivalry, out of a misshapen blacksmith, 
and yet leave him a blacksmith still. Some 
of his critics remarked tliat Scott had gone to 
all countries for characters save Leland : to 
Ireland he sailed in 1825, and scenes were 
pointed out and characters indicated in vain 



80 

for the expected romance. Through the kind- 
ness of a gentleman of that country, I have 
obtained an account of that visit ; the brevity 
of this memoir allows me but to say, that he 
was received every where with acclamations ; 
he visited with much emotion the scenes of 
Swift's early life, and the magnificent scenery 
of Killarney. He returned by the way of the 
Cumberland Lakes, and, with Wordsworth for 
his companion, visited hills and dales made 
classic by his strains ; noi' did he omit to pay 
his respects to Southey, whom he ever admired 
for variety of genius and gentleness of manners. 
Soon after his return, that crushing misfor- 
tune befell the house of Abbotsford, which re- 
duced its lord from affluence to dependence. 
Sir Walter, owing to the failure of some com- 
mercial speculations, in v/hich he was a part- 
ner, became responsible for the payment of one 
hundred and twenty thousand pounds : he re- 
fused to become a bankrupt, considering, hke 
the elder Osbaldistone of his immortal pages, 
commercial honor as dear as any other honor, 
and undertook within the compass of ten years, 
to pay capital and interest of that enormous 
sum. At that time he w^as hale and vigorous, 
and capable of w^ondrous exertions: he gave 



81 

up his house in Edinburgh, now less necessary 
for him on account of the death of Lady Scott ; 
and singhng out various subjects of interest, 
proceeded to retrieve his broken fortunes, with 
a spirit cahn and unsubdued. The bank- 
ruptcy of his booksellers rendered longer con- 
cealment of the author of the Waverley Novels 
impossible. The copyrights of these works 
were offered for sale, and it was necessary for 
the illustrious unfortunate to reveal his secret 
in the best manner he might. Accordingly, 
at the Annual Dinner — 24th February, 1827 — 
of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund, in answer 
to an allusion by his friend Lord Meadowbank, 
Sir Walter said, he had now tlie task of ac- 
knowledging before three hundred gentlemen, 
a secret, which, though confided to twenty peo- 
ple, has been well kept. " I am the author," 
said he, '^ of all the Waverley Novels, the sole 
and undivided author : with the exception of 
quotations, there is not a single word which is 
not derived from myself, or suggested in the 
course of my reading. Tlie wand is now bro- 
ken, and the rod buried." This declaration 
was received with loud cheers, and made a stir 
in all circles ; the great mystery was now 
solved, and thousrh all lamented the cause of 



82 

the disclosure, all were glad at heart, to find 
they were indebted to a man so mild and benev- 
olent as Sir Walter, rather than to any other 
spirit who might have presumed more than 
was meet, after such an assumption of glory. 

When these sad distresses took place. Sir 
Walter had made considerable progress in his 
' Life of Napoleon Bonaparte : ' he was com- 
posing it as the Author of Waverley ; but, with 
the disclosure of his name, his situation was 
altered ; and the first men, mihtary and civil, 
in Europe, readily made communications to him 
concerning that world's wonder, the Emperor 
of the French. To step from imaginative ro- 
mance to true history, was to him a matter of 
perfect ease : he had already, in ' Waverley,' 
and elsewhere, shown us how well they min- 
gled together ; and with such singular skill 
had he blended them, that an ingenious friend 
wrote a clever dissertation, treating ' Waverley ' 
as current history, and pointing out sundry 
slight deviations from the truth. Besides, to 
write the Life of Napoleon was to delineate the 
career of a man whose actions had outstripped 
all ordinary flights of imagination, and involved 
the destinies of the world. For this new task 
Sir Walter had high quaUties besides those 



83 



necessary to compose a ronmncc : he had as 
much of the warrior in his nature, as enabled 
him to enjoy the movements and deeds of those 
dread campaigns, in whicli the chivahy of the 
old monarchies was trampled under foot by the 
fervent spirit of repubhcanism ; and he had a 
power of description, by which, like the genius 
of Napoleon, he could unite the distant with 
the near, and lay the combined movements of 
a wide-spread campaign before the reader, as 
he would lay a map on the table. He seems 
to have studied his subject deeply : indeed, the 
sword of the conqueror had forced this upon 
him ; — a war, which gave to France the land, 
and to Britain the sea, could not pass over such 
a mind as his without making deep impressions. 
He was familiar with the rigid routine and 
stately tactics of the old school of warriors, who 
wrought according to rules learned by heart, 
and would rather have lost a campaign than 
gone into battle with whiskers not cut by the 
Prussian regulations. In Napoleon he saw a 
soldier who conquered, not by despising routine 
rules, but from inventing a system of military 
mathematics, which, by its new combinations, 
rendered old wisdom obsolete ; and yet enabled 
him to vanquish as much by rule as by rapid 



84 



motion and fiery bravery. The great Napoleon 
and his great biographer were bred in different 
schools of poUlical feehng ; with the former all 
old things were too old — all matters of etiquette 
ridiculous : the princes of Europe he looked on 
as dotards ; and his delight was to overturn 
them like mushrooms, and give their thrones 
to his comrades ; — the latter had all the chivahy 
of the old school, united with that reverence for 
princes of long-standing renown imputed to 
poets: he loved old institutions and hereditary 
attachments ; and the principles which souglU 
to tread down rank, that martial talent might 
rise and reign in its stead, were regarded with 
proper horror. In spite of these discordant 
feelings, the ' Life of Napoleon ' is one of the 
noblest monuments of Scott's genius. The 
volumes, third, foiuth, and fifth, are written in 
a spirit, free, unprejudiced and affectionate: he 
seems to enjoy the splendid march of the almost 
beardless adventurer from Paris to Vienna ; 
for he had to conquer at home before he could 
abroad ; and he is ever willing to do justice to 
the generous qualities of his nature, and show 
him alike dutiful as a son and a friend, as he 
was unequalled as a general. The descriptions 
of the battles are clear and graphic — all other 



85 



men's descriptions are confused, compared to 
his : they have fine words — he has fine ima- 
ges : they have plenty of smoke — he is all fire. 
I wish it had pleased the author to have con- 
densed his two volumes on the Revolution into 
a single chapter, and to have dismissed the 
captivity of Napoleon with more brevity. 

I saw him in London, on the day after the 
publication of the ' Fair Maid of Perth : ' the 
first romance of all that splendid file, to which 
he had put his name, or at least publicly ac- 
knowledged. He asked, what I was doing 
with my pen. I said, at present I am doing 
nothing but fighting and wooing with Harry 
Wynd. He gave me one of his peculiar glan- 
ces, and said, " Ay ! and how^ do you like 
him ? " I said I was struck with two things, 
w^hich to me were new — the skill with which 
he had made a blacksmith into a hero — and 
a youth of a martial race a coward, through 
his nurse. He smiled, and seemed pleased 
w^ith my remark. We talked of romance wri- 
ting : " When you wish to w^rite a story," he 
said, " I advise you to prepare an outHne — a 
skeleton of the subject ; and when you have 
pleased yourself with it, proceed to endow it 
with flesh and blood." I remember (I said) 
8 



86 

that you gave me much the same sort of ad- 
vice before. "And did you follow it?" he 
said, quickly. " I tried, (I answered) but 1 had 
not gone far on my way till some will-o'-wisp 
or another dazzled my sight ; so I deviated 
from the path, and never got on it again." 
" 'Tis the same way with myself,'' he said, 
smiling : " I form my plan, and then in exe- 
cuting it I deviate." " Ay, ay ! (said I) I un- 
derstand ; but you deviate into excellence, and 
I into absurdity." I amused him with an ac- 
count of how I felt when his kind notice of 
my drama appeared in the ' Fortunes of Nigel.' 
I said I was in the situation of that personage 
in Scripture, who, unknown yesterday, heard 
the people cry to-day, " Behold the man whom 
the king delighteth to honor ! " He said some 
kind things ; and then I spoke of the public 
anxiety to see him. I told him, that when he 
passed through Oxford, a lady, at whose house 
he took breakfast, desirous of doing him all 
honor, borrowed a silver tray from her neigh- 
bor, who lent it at once, begging to be allowed 
to carry it to the table herself, that she might 
look upon the Author of Waverley. " The 
highest compliment," said Sir Walter, " I ever 
received, was paid me by a soldier of the Scots 



87 

Greys : I strove to get down to Abingdon street 
on the Coronation day, and applied for help to 
a sergeant who guarded the way ; be shook 
his head, saying, ' Countryman, I can't help 
you.' I whispered n)y name, his face kindled 
lip, and he said, ' Then, by G — d, sir, you shall 
go down ! ' he instantly gave me an escort." 

Among the later works of Sir Walter, the 
one from which we have derived as much 
pleasure as any, is his ' Tales of a Grand- 
father,' where he has related all that is poetic 
or picturesque, or characteristic, in the History 
of Scotland. The second series particularly, 
comprehending the period between the acces- 
sion of James to the throne of England, and 
the Union of the whole Island — is above all 
interesting. It contains all the episodical oc- 
currences and events, which such a history 
as Hume's was too stately to admit ; and, in- 
deed, no one will find elsewhere such a lively 
image of the domestic state of the countr}^, or 
such an impartial and dramatic account of the 
jealousies, heart-burnings, and fatal rencounters 
that took place between two proud, high-spirit- 
ed kingdoms, before they became, in every 
sense of the word, as one. I have no wish, 
how^ever, to attempt a delineation — nor even to 



88 

enumerate all the works which this eminent 
man poured upon the world, thick and fast, 
during his latter days. It may be sufficient to 
say, that in his hastiest effusions a spirit was 
visible, with which no living man could cope, 
and that, in the least popular, there were pas- 
sages in abundance, equalling his early works, 
when he first began to give the world the ad- 
vantage of his musings. We must consider, 
too, that he was now in his declining years, 
working both against time and fortune : that 
his whole heart was applied to the colossal task 
of retrieving himself, and satisfying his credit- 
ors, and that it was his duty to do the best he 
could to perform an engagement, which seem- 
ed to all but himself too great for his strength. 
On this, he feehngly touches in his last pre- 
face, writteu on his birthday, in 1831, and 
says, when he found himself involved in the 
sweeping catastrophe of 1826, he surrendered 
on the instant every shred of property which 
he had been accustomed to call his own. 
Among other works which occurred to his 
fancy, was that of a new edition of his Novels, 
illustrated with engravings — and, more valua- 
ble still, with notes, indicating the sources of 
story and of character ; Cadell, of Edinburgh, 



89 



an old and tried friend, became the publisher, 
and this beautiful edition is now to be seen on 
every table, and found in every land. 

Sometime in the beginning of the year 1831, 
a sore illness came upon him : his astonishing 
efforts to satisfy his creditors, began to exhaust 
a mind apparently exhaustless ; and the world 
heard with concern that a paralytic stroke had 
affected his speech and his right hand, so much 
as to render writing a matter of difficulty. One 
of his letters to me, of this period, is not writ- 
ten with his own hand ; the signature is his, 
and looks cramped and weak. I visited him 
at Abbotsford, about the end of July, 1831 : he 
was a degree more feeble than I had ever seen 
him, and his voice seemed affected ; not so his 
activity of fancy and surprising resources of 
conversation. He told anecdotes, and recited 
scraps of verse, old and new, always tending 
to illustrate something passing. He showed 
me his armory, in which he took visible pleas- 
ure, and was glad to hear me commend the 
design of his house, as well as the skill with 
which it was built. His heart seemed bound 
to the place : it is said, that he felt more pleas- 
ure in being thought the builder of Abbotsford, 
and the layer out of the grounds and planta- 
8* 



90 



tions around it, which certainly seemed most 
tastefully done, than to be thought the author 
of the Waverley Novels. This 1 am unwilling 
to believe. Of Abbotsford, and its fine armory 
and librar}^, he might well, indeed, be proud : 
they contained presents from the first men of 
the world, either for rank or talent : the col- 
lection of volumes relating to the history, poet- 
ry, and antiquities of Scotland, is extensive. 
In a small room, half library and half armory, 
lie usually sat and wrote : here he had some 
remarkable weapons, curious pieces of old 
Scottish furniture, such as chairs and cabinets, 
and an antique sort of table, on w4iich lay his 
writing materials. A crooked-headed staff of 
Abbotsford oak or hazel usually lay beside him, 
to support his steps as he went and came. 
Those who wish to have a distinct image of 
the illustrious poet, seated at his ease in this 
snuggery, may look at Allan's portrait lately 
exhibited : or those who wish to see him when, 
touched with ill health, he felt the approach of 
death, will also, I hear, be satisfied : a painting 
is in progress from the same hand, showing Sir 
Walter as he lately appeared — lying on a couch 
in his principal room : all the windows are 
closed save one, admitting a strong central light, 



91 

and showing all that the room contains, in 
deep shadow, or in strong sunshine. 

When it was known that Sir Walter's health 
had decHned, the deep solicitude of all ranks be- 
came manifest ; strangers came from far lands 
to look on the house which contained the great 
genius of our times ; inquirers of humble and 
of high degree, flocked around, and the amount 
of letters of inquiry or condolence was, I have 
heard, enormous. Amongst the visiters, not 
the least welcome was Wordsw^orth, the poet, 
who arrived when the air of the northern hills 
was growing too sharp for the enfeebled frame 
of Scott ; and he had resolved to try if the fine 
air and climate of Italy would restore him to 
health and strength. The following fine son- 
net was composed by the poet of Rydal, beneath 
the roof of his illustrious brother in song : the 
kindness of the editor of the ' Literary Souvenir' 
enables me to work it into my narrative : — 

A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain. 

Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light, 

Engendered hangs o'er Eildon's triple height ; 

Spirits of Power assembled there complain 

For kindred Power departing from their sight ; 

While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a biythe strain 

Saddens his voice, again, and yet again. 

Lift up your heads, ye Mourners ! for the might 



92 



Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes ; 

Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue 

Than sceptred kings or laurelled conqueror knows, 

Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true, 

Ye winds of ocean and the midland sea. 

Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope ! •"? 

When government heard of Sir Walter's 
wisheS; they ofTered him a sliip ; he left Ab- 
botsford, as many thought, forever, and arrived 
in London, wliere he was welcomed as never 
mortal was before. He visited several friends, 
nor did he refuse to mingle in compan}^, and, 
having written something almost approaching 
to a farewell to the world, which was publish- 
ed with ' Castle Dangerous,' the last of his 
works, he set sail for Italy, with the purpose of 
touching at Malta. He seemed revived, but it 
was only for a while : he visited Naples, but 
could not enjoy the high honors paid to him : 
he visited Rome, and sighed, amid its splendid 
teniples and glorious works of art, for gray 
Melrose and the banks of Tweed, and, passing 
out of Italy, proceeded homewards down the 
Rhine. Word came to London, that a dread- 
ful attack of paralysis had nearly deprived him 
of life, and that, but for the presence of mind 
of a faithful servant, he must have perished. 
This alarming news was closely followed by 



his arrival in London. A strong desire of home 
had come upon him : he travelled with fatal 
rapidity night and day, and was all but worn 
out when carried into St. James's Hotel, Jermyn 
street, by his servants. As soon as he had recov- 
ered a little, he ordered his journey to be resumed, 
and on Saturday, July 7th, 1832, departed by 
sea to Scotland, reached Abbotsford, and seemed 
revived. He recognised and spoke kindly to 
several friends ; smiled when borne into his 
library ; hstened with patience amounting to 
pleasure to the reading of passages from the 
poems of Crabbe and Wordsworth ; and was 
always happiest when he had his children 
around him. When he was leaving London, 
the people, wherever he was recognised, took 
off their hats, saying, " God bless you. Sir Wal- 
ter ! " His arrival in Scotland was hailed with 
the same sympathetic greetings ; and so much 
was his spirit cheered, that hopes were enter- 
tained of his recovery. But the cloud gradual- 
ly descended upon him : he grew weaker and 
weaker — and, on the 21st of September, 1832, 
died amidst his family, without any appearance 
of pain. On his head being opened, part of 
the brain was found injured ; several globules 
of a watery nature were pressing upon it. He 



94 



was buried at Dryburgh, on Wednesday, Sep- 
tember 25th. The hills were covered, and the 
villages filled with mourners. He was borne 
fiom the hearse by his own domestics, and laid 
in the grave by the hands of his children. 

In person. Sir Walter Scott was nearly six 
feet high, w^ell formed, strongly knit and com- 
pactly built; his arms were long and sinewy; his 
looks stately and commanding, and his face as 
he related a heroic story flushed up as a crystal 
cup, when one fills it with wine. His eyes were 
deep seated under his somewhat shaggy brows ; 
their color was a bluish grey ; they laughed 
more than his lips did at a humorous story ; 
histower-Hke head, and thin white hair, marked 
him out among a thousand, while any one 
might swear to his voice again who heard it 
once, for it had both a touch of the lisp and the 
burr ; yet, as the minstrel said of Douglas, " it 
became him to wonder well," and gave great 
softness to a sorrowful stor}^ : indeed, 1 imagin- 
ed that he kept the burr part of the tone for mat- 
ters of a facetious or humorous kind, and 
brought out the lisp in those of tenderness or 
wo. When I add, that in a meeting of a 
hundred men, his hat was sure to be the least, 
and would fit no one's head but his own, I 



95 



have said all that I have to say about his ap- 
pearance. He delighted in manly exercises : 
in youth he was foremost in all sports and mat- 
ters of harmless mischief: his health, as he 
wrote to Sir Andrew HaJlida}^, was excellent 
till the year 1820, when stitches in his side and 
cramps in his stomach attacked him, and were 
mastered with difficulty. He loved to ride in 
a short coat, wdth wide trowsers, on a little 
stout galloway, and the steepest hill did not 
stop him, nor the deepest water daunt him : it 
w^as his pleasure, moreover, to walk out fre- 
quently among his plantations, with a small 
hatchet and hand-saw, with which he lopped 
off superfluous boughs, or removed an entire 
tree, when it was marring the growth of others. 
He was widely and generally beloved — his 
great genius hardly equalled his kindhness of 
heart and generosity of nature. I do not mean 
that he stood foremost in all subscriptions which 
were likely to be advertised : I mean that he 
aided the humble and the deserving ; he as- 
sumed no patronizing airs, and wished rather 
to be thought doing an act of kindness to him- 
self, than obliging others. To his friendship 
I owe so much, that I know not the extent of 
what I owe : through him, two of my sons are 



96 



Engineer officers in the East India Company's 
service ; and he did this, because, said he, com- 
phmenting and obHging- me in the same sen- 
tence, " One Scottish Makker (Poet) should 
aid another." I never heard him say an un- 
kind word of any one ; and if lie said a sharp 
one, which on some occasions he did, he in- 
stantly softened the impression by relating some 
kindly trait. The sternest words I ever heanl 
him utter were concerning a certain poet: 
'- That man," he said, " has had much in his 
power, but lie never befriended rising genius 
yet." 1 could not say anything to the con- 
trary. He delighted in looking at old ruins, 
and he loved to converse with old people of any 
station, but particularly shepherds. He had a 
great respect for landmarks : he knew and 
could describe every battle-field in Britain : — he 
had visited the scenes of the best Scottish songs, 
and had drinking-cups from the Bash aboon 
Traqhiiair, the Broom of the Cowden-knowes, 
and Alloway's auld haunted kirk. He disliked 
to see a stone displaced on an old castle wall, 
or a field ploughed up which was famed in 
story; and I was told, he was never seen 
moved to anger, save once, and that was against 
a clergyman, who unthinkingly began to re- 



97 



move one of the large gray stones which mark 
the tragic event, recorded in that mournful 
ballad — ' The Dowie Dens of Yarrow.' 

Of his habits as an author, I know little, 
save what he happened to tell me, or what I 
casually gathered from men intimate with him. 
He told me that he was an early riser : I have 
since learned, that his usual hour of beginning 
to w^rite was seven o'clock in the morning ; — 
that he continued it, saving the brief hour of 
breakfast, till one, and sometimes two o'clock ; 
then shaved, dressed, and went to the hills with 
his favorite dogs — two tall rough strong hounds, 
fit to pull down a stag, — and, after some hours' 
exercise, returned to see such friends as chance 
or invitation brought to his door. By this mode 
of economizing time, he marched fast on with 
a romance; as he was always inspired alike 
when in health, he had no occasion to wait for 
the descent of the muse, but dashed away at 
the rate of sixteen pages of print daily. He 
wrote freely and without premeditation; and 
his corrections were beyond all example few. 
When he wrote fastest he wrote best, because 
his heart was in trim. Though the most ac- 
complished author of his day, yet he had none 
of the airs of authorship; and when he came 
9 



98 

forth from his study, he laid aside the poet's 
mantle, and put on the dress of the country 
gentleman who knew the world, and loved to 
practise courtesy and indulge in hospitality. 
He was a proud man — not a proud poet, or his- 
torian, or novelist ; he loved to be looked on as 
a gentleman of old family, who built Abbots- 
ford, and laid out its gardens and planted its 
avenues, rather than a genius, whose works 
influenced mankind and diffused happiness 
among millions. It was not of the builder or 
the planter, that the people of Glasgow thought, 
when they lowered their colors in the Clyde 
shipping half-mast high, the moment they 
heard of his death ; but perhaps the truest com- 
pliment ever uttered, was by the west country 
weaver : " The only consolation which I have," 
said he, " in these times of depression, is in 
reading Walter Scott's novels." 

The genius of Scott was almost universal; 
he has shown himself great in every way that 
literature has displayed itself in for these hun- 
dred years: fchakspeare, Milton, Burns, and 
Byron, have each, in their particular line, 
equalled or excelled him ; but then he surpassed 
them all, save perhaps the first, in the com- 
bination of many and various excellences. He 



99 



was poet, historian, biographer, novehst and 
critic. As a poet, he may dispute in many 
things supremacy with the loftiest of his day ; 
as a historian, he is only equalled by Southey ; 
as a biographer, he had not the highest suc- 
cess, because he took up the characters of the 
changeable Dryden and the shuffling Swift ; 
as a critic, he ranks with the best; and as a 
novelist, he is not only unrivalled, but he stands 
on the scale of excellence above all preceding 
writers, save Cervantes. 

By his poetry he was first known to the 
world, though much of the prose of his ' Bor- 
der Minstrelsy ' shows the largeness and varie- 
ty of his powers. The astonishing ease, 
vigor, and vehemence of his verse captivated 
all Europe. His poems are a succession of 
historical figures, which have all the fine pro- 
portion and well-defined forms of sculpture, 
with this difference — they move, and speak, 
and act, and are inspired with love or heroism, 
according to the will of the poet. I have made 
this allusion to a sister art, to show that I think 
the aid of science is necessary in the concep- 
tion of the characters of Epic song, and that 
nature must be refined and elevated. Yet, 
though works of art, the heroes of Scott have 



100 



less of the repose of sculpture about them than 
any characters with which I am acquainted. 
No one, since the days of Homer, has with a 
more burning and impetuous breath, sung of the 
muster, the march, the onset, and all the fiery 
vicissitudes of battle. He remembers the pre- 
cept of Punch, and keeps moving ; his soldiers 
are not like (hose of Gifted Gilfillan, who 
were an hungered by the way, and tarried for 
a word of refreshment in season ; and the poet 
is not the 

Retired Leisure, 
Who in trim gardens takes his pleasure, 

of Milton, but a leader blessed with a ready 
promptitude of soul, who eyes his enemy, 
marks a vulnerable part, and rushes to (he 
fray at once. I know nothing, in verse, to 
compare with many of the passages of his 
historical poems ; — the 'Night March of Delo- 
raine,' and his winning of the magic book, in 
the ' Lay of the Last Minstrel : ' the battle 
scene, and the quarrel with the Earl of Angus, 
in ' Marmion : ' the ambush of Roderick Dhu, 
and his single combat with Fitz James in the 
' Lady of the Lake : ' the deeds of Bertrrun 
Risinghame, in ' Rokeby,' and the characters 



101 

and different bearings of Robert and Edward 
Bruce, with the ambush which surprised the 
Castle of Kildrumniie, in the ' Lord of the 
Isles,' are ahke unequalled and wonderful. 
Action — action — action is the fault as well as 
the existence of Scott : Tasso and Spenser 
have indulged their heroes with pastoral re- 
tirements and bowers of bliss ; and Milton him- 
self soothes even his devils with a sort of 
uneasy repose ; — but Scott seldom deviates from 
the highway which leads to the catastrophe ; 
his soldiers pluck no flowers by the road to 
decorate their arms ; and, save in the ' Lay of 
the Last Minstrel,' the poet never allows his 
characters to pause and contemplate. In this, 
he resembles Byron, and differs from all other 
poets. His verse is easy, flowing, and various, 
and, though resembling in many points that 
of the old romances, is decidedly original in all 
that is important. 

Of his powers as a historian, I have already 
spoken. He took Froissart more for his mod- 
el than he did Hume ; though he speaks both 
to eye and mind, he chiefly consults *he for- 
mer. His battle scenes in his ' Napoleon,' are 
in a different style from those in his poems, 

because personal valor ruled in the elder days 
9# 



102 



of war, as much as mind rules now. The 
Battle of the Pyramids is a moving and ani- 
mated scene : the master-mind of Napoleon tii- 
umphed, without much exertion, over tlie most 
magnificent body of cavalry the world perhaps 
ever saw : we are made to see, that individual 
valor is nought against the military mathemat- 
ics of the new school of conquest. The same 
may be said of the European battles, while to 
the scientific beauty of the Emperor's combina- 
tions, he adds the heady whirlwind charges of 
Murat of the Snowy Plume ; the impetuosity 
of the intrepid Ney ; the readiness of the 
spoiled child of victory, Massena ; the sagaci- 
ty and skill of Soult, and the heavy bravery of 
Yandanmie. Nor is he less happy in his do- 
mestic pictures, tliough he loves most the camp 
and the battle — the siege and the storm. His 
style is too familiar now and then, and he 
sometimes wants brevity ; he is, however, hon- 
est and fair in his estimates of pubhc and 
private character ; and one may answer many 
of his sternest critics, by asking them, could he, 
with any consistency, love alike the Napoleon 
of the year 1796, and the Napoleon of the 
year 1806 ? 

His biographies, in which I include the char- 



103 



acters of the novelists, as well as the lives of 
Dryden and Swift, have many sagacious and 
impressive passages, and are neither deficient 
in critical skill, nor in the perception and de- 
lineation of character. But they are too dif- 
fuse, disconnected, and rambhng. His com- 
parison of Fielding and Smollett, is as just as 
it is beautiful ; but his mind was too excur- 
sive to be limited long to the contemplation of 
one point : he failed here in comparison with 
his other works, from exuberance of fancy and 
over-abundance oi" knowledge. In criticism he 
was airy and graceful, sagacious and profound, 
as the subject required : his estimate of Byron 
is nearer the truth than his estimate of Burns ; 
the station of tlie former gilds his follies, and 
makes his wiklest and most licentious sallies 
pass for tlie brave things of a nobleman ; while 
the rash sayings and reckless wit of the latter 
are set down to the nature of the man, and 
imputed to a sort of studied contempt for the 
forms of society and gentle civilities of social 
life. I know not that he is so profound a 
critic as he is a pleasant and instructive one : 
he leads us towards his subject through beds of 
liUes, and along haunted brooks ; and we grow 
so charmed with our guide, that we nearly 
forget the object of our journey. 



104 

All the qualities which enchained us in his 
poetry and history, are united in his romances : 
his historical epics were addressed more ex- 
clusively to minds polished by study, and to all 
who had any pretension to imagination : he ap- 
peals to the same feelings in his prose romances, 
but adds, what the other could not from its na- 
ture admit, the dramatic drolleries and humbler 
humanities of rustic life. He has thus seized 
on the hearts of all ranks : the loftiest imagina- 
tion will be pleased with his flights, which 
often approach the clouds, but never enter 
them ; and the humblest intellect in the scale 
of Spurzheim cannot resist being moved with 
his familiar delineations, w^hich often touch 
the debateable land of propriety, but never pass 
the border. It is this singular union of the 
higher and lower qualities, which raises him 
in my opinion — I speak from the pleasure a 
work affords me, and not by any rule — above 
all novelists who ever wrote, with the exception 
of Cervantes : he lives more in the upper, and 
as much in the lower air as Fielding : he has 
all the fertility of Smollett, but never carica- 
tures : he has all the poetic ftncy and tender- 
ness of Wilson, brightened u itli sallies of wit, 
and the quaint, blunt humor of the clouted 



105 



shoe ; and he has a command over human 
cluiracter far more extensive than all other nov- 
ehsts put together. The rapid vehemence of 
his narrative, which, like the morning sun, 
glances on the loftiest and most striking points 
of the landscape, is nothing compared with his 
portraits of individual character : here he is as 
inexhaustible as nature : they all belong also 
to the places where he puts them, as naturally 
as an acorn belongs to its cup : he gives us 
their likenesses in a few happy touches, and then 
proceeds to endow them w^ith sentiments, and 
lead them into action. Some authors are hap- 
py in having imagined one successful charac- 
ter : Scott has raised them in battalions ; all 
vigorous in body and soul ; their speech colored 
somewhat by their condition and means of 
know^ ledge ; and all as different as a sensitive 
plant is from a Scotch thistle. In this, no one 
is w^orthy of being named with him, save 
Shakspeare ; but Scott's sympathy with human 
nature is more generous and wide-reaching 
than that of the great dramatist, who has no 
Dinmonts, Headriggs, Ochiltrees, or Moniplies 
— his peasants are pyecoated foals ; his citizens 
dolts or heroes of East Cheap. All with Scott 
is easy : he never labors ; he never seems to 



say the half df what he conld say on any sub- 
ject, while most other authors write till the 
theme is exhausted. No other genius ever ex- 
ercised over the world so wide a rule : no one, 
perhaps, ever united so many great — almost 
godlike qualities, and employed them so gen- 
erously for the benefit of the living. It is not 
to us alone that he has spoken : his voice will 
delight thousands of generations unborn, and 
charm his country wh\le wood grows and wa- 
ter runs. 



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